Where the Birds Hide at Night (7 page)

It was the day after I'd solved the murders of Louis Sellers and James Harrington at the museum. Barbara Davies was well on her way to a long stint in prison, and I felt compelled to return to the museum. I don't know why, as I always try not to get myself involved in things. But, on this occasion I walked straight in and discovered a meeting of the museum club was in progress. I could hear the voices pulsating from the room, though not exactly what they were saying. As I tried the door, I discovered it was locked. Quickly I turned and walked away, only to hear the sound of the door unlocking. I stopped and turned to see a man's face poking out. ‘Peter Smith,' he spoke gently.

‘Yes. How do you know who I am?'

‘We've been expecting you.'

‘Who has?'

‘The museum club.'

‘Oh. And who are you?'

‘You will never know my name, nor the names of the other members.'

‘That puts me at a disadvantage.'

‘On the contrary.'

‘I know the names of two members already… past members – Louis Sellers and James Harrington.'

He laughed. ‘They were not members of
our
museum club. Come, join us. We have much to discuss.'

I went inside. There I found six figures standing with their backs to me, in long silk gowns and their heads covered in hoods. The unsheathed man who'd beckoned me in was bland and colourless, an unremarkable face sporting nothing but an excitable mouth which seemed to moisten as he watched me take in what my eyes were seeing. The room, too, was colourless and dull, empty but for the huge upright box.

‘Who are you, what do you want?' I asked naively.

‘My part has been played,' the man said, ‘and now I must go.' He stepped up to the box, opening his arms out as though he was waiting to embrace a long-lost loved-one who was racing towards him from the distance. He dropped to his knees, his black hair turning instantly grey and falling out. I tried to pass the six hooded figures to go to him, but together they simply stopped me without a touch or a word spoken, and from what I could see of the man's crowd-face, it became awash with deep wrinkles and blotches of flaky red skin. ‘Cease not,' were his final words, before his body slammed down onto the floor.

‘He's dead,' I yelled, still unable to move to – or even away from – him.

‘He is not dead, he has merely delivered himself back to the waiting room,' they told me in their eerie way. ‘We are the keepers of The Space, and you are the final link between The Great Collective and The Space.'

‘Come again?' I said, completely overwhelmed with what I'd just witnessed. I couldn't quite work out whether it had been real or some illusion. My mind was numbed to the sights and sounds of false horror from watching TV with Mother, that I now wondered if I could tell apart truth from reality.

‘We too carry some residual essence from past lives, but it is miniscule. No longer can we rightly claim to be part of The Great Collective. But you, Peter Smith, are near complete as can be after so many years and lives.'

‘Show me your faces, let me see you,' I demanded of them, mentally fighting their touch-less bonds.

‘It is best you do not see our faces.'

‘You must show me something,' I told them, trying to make some sense of all this. Strangely, though, it did feel familiar; I was not confused beyond return. Throughout my entire short life so far, I had felt some kind of block – some kind of impenetrable wall – denying me my desire to be who I felt I wanted to be. There was always a blockade, always a Mother or some other repressor, keeping me from metamorphosing into my true self. Suddenly I sensed that wall collapsing, these unknown yet familiar words rushing back to me as though I had long had an association with them. At that moment I really wanted to be a part of what these hooded beings said I was a part of. I was the last of something, I was important and I was necessary to whatever. It didn't matter what – it simply mattered that I
was
.

‘We will show you yourself, who you really are. But, it will take time.'

‘What next, then?'

‘You must join us in our rituals, expand your mind alongside ours. We will assist in your re-connection with The Space.'

I did not question their apparent kindness, though I knew right off that they needed me. My power over them was absolute, but I didn't feel the need to exercise it at present. There was always time for that. There was time for all kinds of things. I could at any time pull out, put a stop to them and their schemes. But, I don't think I wanted to. I wanted to gain access to this mysterious thing they called The Space that I felt I did and didn't know at the same time.

The rest of my first visit was spent in a haze as I came to terms with what they were telling me. Much of it did not sink in, my recall of the finer details rather misty looking back now. I was but a teen, nearing adulthood but not quite there, and my mind was spread thin and wide. Something did stick in my mind, something which perhaps went some way to showing how loud my inner thoughts were to their ears – they told me to listen to their thoughts before I left for the day.

‘It is not wise to involve yourself with Lucy Davies,' they warned me from nowhere. I was just standing there, trying to absorb more and more intricate notions.

‘Why not?' I questioned in my naivety.

‘You are destined to be with somebody else.'

‘Who?' I was intrigued. This teenage virgin, keen to get his first leg over, was loathe to be kept waiting any longer. The sniff of a girl out there with my name on her was a veritable opportunity. But, they would not reveal who.

‘It is not yet time,' is all they would say. I was not going to heed their advice. All they had done was set my mind to utter determination where the acquisition of Lucy was concerned. This other girl, who was she? Did she even exist, or was it one of their tricks? People had always tricked me, played games on me, made me the butt of their jokes. Lucy looked to me now like something I desperately wanted to get above all else. My only redemption in this utter objectivity was that I strove long and hard that night, alone in my bed, to picture Lucy the person and not just the body. Yes, she had been rather distant from me at school and we had had no real connection in life yet, but I could just feel deep down that she was the girl for me. And I would acquire her.

That morning, at breakfast, Father had already left early for work. He was almost a non-event in my life, our interactions with each other long since vanquished for no particular reason. We had once engaged on some mediocre level – constructing models together and the like – but I was growing up and he was not the sort of man to move along with me. We never spoke about anything fundamental, about anything less basic than the weather; he was unable to even introduce me to “the birds and the bees”. I was left alone to develop and fix my own impression of “getting the girl”, and now I felt such a point nearing. Stuart sat across from me, grinning just a little too much. I don't know what he had to grin about. Was the prospect of a day of school ahead of him cause for such mirth? Being that little bit younger than me, he still had a yard's length to go before finishing his educational stint, but somehow I felt less advanced than he. That grin was all it took to make me feel he knew something I didn't, or had done something I hadn't. It took me all my strength not to yell at him and cause a scene. But, I wouldn't let him have that.

‘What are you plans for the day, Peter?' he suddenly asked me in a sly tone.

‘Yes, Peter, what
are
your plans for the day?' Mother rounded, squaring her eyes at mine as she joined us at the table with a slice of toast slathered in marmalade.

‘I have important work to undertake down at the police station,' said I, deciding to at least attempt some sort of fabrication.

‘What important work?' Stuart carried on, that nasty glint in his eye as the morning sun caught his bright blonde hair. I ducked away, surprised by its intensity.

‘Speak up,' Mother roared. ‘Another day of fannying around, is it?' She took in a mouthful of toast, and carried on talking: ‘You need a job, Peter, not this obsession with solving local mysteries.'

‘But, I feel drawn to it, Mother,' I cut in gingerly, shielding my face from the onslaught of moist toast shards shooting from her open mouth. Stuart giggled. ‘I feel the need to solve crimes.'

‘Rubbish! You're wasting your life, Peter. You need a job, not a passion. You don't want to end up one of these middle-aged losers living on welfare at home with their mothers, do you?'

I felt rather broken by this. Still, it was nothing new. I'd heard the same thing day in day out since finishing school, and Stuart knew exactly how to initiate such diatribes. That was how we left the discussion, for soon enough I had finished my own breakfast and headed out on my bicycle to Myrtleville police station. There, I knew I would find, amongst other interesting things, Lucy Davies. Short, dark-haired and round-bottomed, she was a sight almost too overbearing to look at. If you stared for too long, it would result in the extermination of your sight – nothing more would you wish to look upon, as you'd have already seen it all. We had very much hated each other at school, but now that the bonds and restraints of such a tired institutional set-up were banished from our young lives, we could go about constructing some form of connection.

She passed me in the main reception as I entered the station. I went to say hello, but she was already gone – possibly from my day altogether. Would there be another opportunity to see her again today? This drew the air from my lungs, the strength from my legs. I thought about going after her, then decided against it. I sat down and mulled things over. Then, she walked past again, heading back the way she'd come. I stood up and stepped towards her.

‘Lucy,' I greeted her, ‘hi!'

‘Hi,' she said back, carrying on her way. She pushed the double doors ahead of her open and stepped through. I followed beside her, covertly drawing in her scent when proximity permitted. ‘What do you want?' she asked, stopping and turning to face me.

‘Good question,' was all I could respond with. She rolled her eyes and carried on. ‘Actually, I, erm,' I thought, her pace difficult to allow thinking time. ‘I was wondering if you wanted to, you know…'

‘No, I don't know,' she responded indifferently, reaching Inspector Hastings' door.

‘Go out with me.' I took the plunge, empowered by the ego boost dealt to me by the museum club. All she did was laugh in my face, before knocking on the door.

‘Come in,' Hastings called out, and she did so, closing the door in my face.

For me, that went better than I could have ever expected. She could easily have spat in my face, or head-butted me, for instance. That I was still standing, and not floored by her might, was proof that things could soon begin to blossom between us. I turned to look down the corridor to see Sergeant Noose walking towards me. With him was a rather attractive woman dressed in a suit similar to his own. She had her hair permed, making her look older than she was, and the shoulder pads did not help either. Noose had her in hysterics as he blasted out some anecdote. They reached me and his spirits soured.

‘What do you want, Peter?' he asked me, clearly wanting to carry on his wooing.

‘Aren't you going to introduce me to your lady friend?' I asked coyly.

‘She is not my lady friend, Peter, she is Detective Sergeant Nicola Williams, and she's here to speak to Lucy Davies about career options.'

‘Ah, I see. Maybe you could speak to me too,' I hinted, wishing to join the force myself. I saw it as a veritable chance to kill two birds with one stone. Mother wanted me to have a job, and I wanted to solve mysteries. It made perfect sense to become a copper.

Noose laughed at me, knocking on Hastings' door.

‘Come in,' Hastings called out, and Noose and Williams did so, slamming the door in my face.

I made my way back to reception and sat there in a stupor for the next hour or so. Noose and Williams eventually passed me and headed out, either not seeing me at all or possibly ignoring me on purpose. Then, Lucy came through the double doors. She caught sight of me and initially carried on past. But, something made her stop in her tracks and turn. She came over and I stood as she reached me.

‘I'm sorry about earlier, Peter. I was nervous about my interview,' she said. My heart stopped beating for but a split second and I wished I'd still been sitting.

‘No worries,' was all I could say.

‘It's not that, well, it's not that I don't like you or anything, but I don't want to get distracted in my studies.'

‘Yes, of course.'

She smiled. Oh, she was such a beauty. ‘It's funny really, you asking me out.'

‘It is?'

‘Well, it probably sounds a little odd to say this, but I kinda had a little crush on you when we were little kids in school.' She chuckled. ‘Seems really funny looking back now. I used to imagine us playing house together, but your mother would never let you come round to play when my mother asked.'

The fury of a millennia of human suffering flushed through my fists right that second. ‘That is quite funny,' I lied. ‘And I thought you hated me.'

‘Well I didn't like you later on, when I started to fancy boys properly.' Again she laughed. This was the first proper conversation we'd ever had. Why had I been so foolish as to just ask her out on the spot with no prior connection to back it up? This was that connection I was striving for, being created right now.

‘I didn't like you, either,' I giggled childishly, smiling. She smiled back, getting the joke. ‘Listen, sorry for asking you out earlier. I was nervous too, just being stupid I was.'

‘No, no!'