The Replacement Phenomenon
As they stepped out of the car they both looked across the overgrown field to where Jake had parked his car a few hours earlier. It was a black, deformed mess of a car. When the other guy had lost track of Jake he had evidently returned to destroy his car.
“Well, there's not much point in having a closer look at your car now. Looks like they got their hands on it first,” Lynn said.
“Forget the car for a minute,” Jake responded. “There are bigger things going on here, and we've arrived when there's no one around. We'll need to look around quickly and get out of here in case someone comes back.”
Lynn nodded. They walked to the factory and Jake tried the main door. It was locked. Lynn could tell by his puzzled look that he had been expecting easy entry. It hadn't been locked for any of Jake's recent visits. They looked for another way in but found nothing. There was only one way that they were getting into this building, and that was with force. Jake knew he could do nothing further if he simply walked away from this now.
He took a few steps back and ran at the door. As his right shoulder hit the door he felt himself falling with it inside the building. It seemed the door frame was much weaker than the door or the heavy padlock used to secure it. After crashing to the hard ground he got to his feet, feeling a little dizzy, and rubbed his painful right shoulder. That hurt more than he'd expected it would. Not surprisingly when he considered he had collided with a concrete floor with only a solid wooden door for protection against the hard surface.
“That worked a treat,” Lynn commented, stepping past him, gazing aimlessly around the factory. “Now, what are we looking for?”
“Anything. Whatever might help us,” he replied. He circled around in disbelief. There was nothing there. There was nothing at all. The building was empty, with the floor covered in a thick layer of dust and debris, looking as if no one had been there for several years.
“No. This can't be right,” he said with a hint of panic in his voice, which echoed back off the dusty walls. “It was all here. Everything. A blackboard, chairs, and...” The office must still have something in it. He ran across the empty floor, leaving footprints in a thick layer of dust. He found the door to the office and tried the handle. This one opened with little effort. His shoulder couldn't take another hit like the one gained from their entry to the factory. As he stared into the room his shoulders slumped.
Empty. Not only was this building empty, but it looked very much as if no one had been there for at least five or six years. Dust covered everything. Anything metal was badly corroded. Rotten pieces of wood covered the floor. This didn't make sense. People had brought things out of this building this very morning. How could it be so empty now?
“I guess they knew you were coming,” Lynn surmised as she walked up behind him.
“I guess they did. I've got to hand it to them. They can cover their tracks well,” he stated.
“So Jake, what do we do now?” Lynn asked.
He shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.”
CHAPTER 8
Wednesday 28th January, 7:46am
Jake couldn't believe what was happening. Nothing about the old factory made sense any more. This building was definitely being used, but it looked as if it had been lying desolate for many months, and probably for several years.
Jake was left speechless by the change in the building from when he'd last seen it. The guy who had attacked him in his car must have had something to do with it. He must have seen his car near the factory and put two and two together.
Returning this building to its former desolate condition would have taken several people the entire morning so far. In just an hour and a half this building had gained month’s worth of dust, dirt, and corrosion. They had even damaged a number of the bricks inside and out to give a greater impression of the building falling into disrepair.
These people were not stupid, nor did they take anything for granted when planning and carrying out their attacks. Covering tracks was very hard to do but these people did it very well.
He was reviewing the day's events, trying to decide what he should do next. He knew little about these people or their scheduled attacks. He needed to find some link between his family and the Brady family. They didn't live in the same part of town. They didn't have any professional connections. He listed possible connections in his head and systematically eliminated them, one by one. There was no link, as far as he could see, that could possibly connect the two families, other than the fact that they lived in the same town, but the same could be said for thousands of people.
He and Lynn were now driving back to her house. There was nothing at the dilapidated building he'd frequented over the past few days. He needed another source of information regarding these people. He knew nothing about them, except for the fact that they employed poor quality hit-men, and that they had the money and resources to over-decorate an abandoned factory and restore it to its crummy state at almost a moment's notice.
They had something against the Bradys and his family, and he wasn't going to rest until he found out what it was.
Jake rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers and sighed. “I just don't know where to go from here. These people cover their tracks really well, and I'm no private investigator,” he said, not expecting to get a response. “I'm running from the police, and trying to track down a gang of serial killers.” He threw his arms up in despair, as far as the ceiling of the small car would allow. “I have no leads, no information, and I'm going backwards in time. Does any part of this not sound crazy to you?”
“I think you need to rest for a couple of hours, then you'll be able to think more clearly. It's been an exhausting day for you so far.” Lynn's comment seemed very sensible, and arguing took too much effort.
“Exhausting is not the word. I've seen entire TV series with less going on. When we get back to your place I'll get a little sleep if that's okay with you. First I'll have to call work, and figure out what I'm going to tell Amy... if I tell Amy anything.” Jake was confused and very tired. They arrived at Lynn's home and Jake was in the spare room sleeping within minutes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The corridor in which Joseph was sitting was clean and not particularly well decorated. He'd been sat staring at these two-coloured walls for what seemed like an eternity. People came and went; doctors and nurses entered and exited rooms at seemingly random intervals.
He was running out of things to read on the walls surrounding him. He'd already read public notices about homophobia, basic first aid, and the dangers of super-bugs with emphasis on cleanliness. There were occasional magazines dotted around, but they all seemed to be older than he was, or of a subject matter such as fashion, fame and home-making, so he wasn’t remotely interested in trying to read any of them.
Two-tone cream and pastel green walls weren't enough to keep the mind active for four seconds, let alone four hours.
The view in front of him was one that he associated with previous pain. He was reminded of the last time he'd sat staring at these walls inside the Darlington Memorial Hospital, and he hoped the news would be better this time. He was sitting in the same chair as he had done just over a year ago. The last time his father had been beside him, comforting him and reassuring him.
His mother and both of his brothers had been returning home from a New Year’s Eve party when a truck, travelling too fast for the conditions, skidded across a snowy road outside of town and hit them. A car would always come off second best in such a collision. He'd seen the police photographs of the accident. The car was a squashed and mangled wreck. They were all killed of course, but the truck driver didn't even get a scratch. He'd been troubled for this past year over the injustice of such a thing, but he knew he couldn't change anything. He did, however, want revenge on that driver. He thought that man deserved to be deprived of something, but his father had told him that revenge led down a dark path from which there was little chance of return. He said that a person l
oses part of his soul when he seeks out revenge and that a universal justice fixes things eventually. He wasn't sure if he agreed with that any more. Justice would mean his father would now live to take care of him. Reality suggested something different.
He brought himself back to the present and wished he could wake up to discover today was one long nightmare, but he knew that would not happen. As much as it pained him to admit it, this was as real as any previous moment of his life.
His father had arrived at the hospital at about seven. There had been no word on his condition since about fifteen minutes after his arrival. There was internal bleeding and severe trauma to the head, as well as some bad burns.
They'd told him other things about his father's condition, but he was so overawed by the whole series of events that he'd failed to really hear the rest of the details.
A door swung open and a man in a light blue surgeon outfit stood before him, fidgeting with a small blue cloth cap that matched the rest of his uniform. He looked very uncomfortable and upset. Joseph was pretty sure he knew what was coming. His mother and both of his brothers had been taken away from him, and now his father was on the brink of joining them in the afterlife, if he hadn't done so already.
He didn't know if he was prepared to hear what this surgeon was about to say, but he didn't have much choice in the matter.
Before Joseph could say anything the man started to speak. “Mr Brady, I'm sorry but we did everything we could. There were more complications than we had initially thought. Your father didn't make it. I'm so sorry.” The surgeon finished what he was saying with a mention of a counselling service and the question of whether any other family members could be informed. It all seemed like a recitation of something from medical school, then the man disappeared back into the room he had exited as quickly as possible.
He was alone, and feeling more alone than anyone else. He had no one left. It felt to Joseph as though his world had collapsed around him. He was on his own with a house and a butcher's shop, and was barely old enough to have finished school. He felt resentment for the stranger who charged out of their van to stop him joining the rest of his family and dying with them. If the man had been involved in the murderous act then Joseph would of course hate the man. If he was trying to help, and thus saved Joseph's life, he would possibly hate him more for causing him to survive and to be left alone in this world.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake heard the bottom of the thin wooden door scrape against the carpet slightly as it always did when it was opened. The noise was enough to wake him from his sleep. He didn't think any dreams had been interrupted. He was probably sleeping too deeply to dream.
“Re-joining the world of the living I see,” Lynn said. “You must have been tired to sleep this long.” Lynn's voice helped Jake readjust to reality. He looked at the basic quartz clock on the wall that Lynn had pointed to as she spoke. It was nearly 2 o’clock in the afternoon. His head felt slightly numb, making it difficult to think. His mouth felt as dry as parched earth in the middle of summer. He sat up and was greeted by a brief spell of dizziness before he regained his balance and stood up gingerly.
Jake and Lynn were deep in thought as they had lunch, but neither of them spoke. Jake knew he needed to figure out what his next move would be, and could concentrate better when things were quiet. Every lead he had was gone and he still had no idea what he should do next. Things would reset tomorrow, but that would not help him if he didn't know where he needed to be.
There was only one thought that seemed to lead anywhere: He needed to find out more about the Brady family. Maybe they had more in common with his family than he had previously thought, although he couldn't fathom what that might be. There were two problems with this idea: First of all, he knew that the Brady house would surely be watched by policemen after this morning, and secondly, he wasn't exactly sure where they lived. When he had been outside their house that very same morning he'd arrived there in the back of a dark van before sunrise. When he left the area, he left so quickly that he did not take in any details that would help him to return.
He sat thinking about ways to talk to the Bradys without handing himself over to the police. He also needed to do it without putting himself or them in danger of being hurt by the thugs who orchestrated the attack in the first place. They would still be looking for them, and would be unlikely to give up after one failed attempt.
Jake's eyes were staring into nothingness as he pondered his next move, then he noticed the phone book on the coffee table in Lynn's lounge. He immediately went to it and opened it in the residential listings under the letter B. There were about twenty families with the surname Brady, but he could eliminate quite a few.
He knew the first initial of the man of the house and could cut the list down to five people named “B. Brady”.
He asked Lynn for a street map and looked up the street where each Brady family lived. Two of them lived on streets in the area he'd been in that morning. He could handle cold-calling two phone numbers, and so he did.
The first number belonged to a Bill Brady who worked as an estate agent. Clearly not the man Jake wanted to speak to. He pretended to be calling for marketing purposes, offering the man a good deal on double glazing windows, then the man hung up.
Assuming that the Brady's number was listed in the phone book, he had it in front of him. He dialled the number. The phone rang three times, then four. Jake was wondering if anyone would pick up the phone when he suddenly heard a voice on the other end.
“Joey Brady speaking. How may I help you?”
“Hello Joey. This is Jake - the guy who saved your life this morning.” There was silence on the other end, so Jake continued, “I want you to know I had nothing to do with the bomb. I was just trying to save you two when I found out you were being targeted.”
“Why should I believe you? You're the closest thing the police have to a suspect. If you didn't do it, then why did you run away like a criminal?” Joseph asked.
“I guess I thought I'd be treated like one for saving someone's life. Listen, if I was behind it, why would I have been in the van? Why would I have stopped you getting in and getting blown up?” Jake answered the question with two of his own.
“Okay, say I believe you. Did you just call to apologise for running off, or to offer your condolences?” Joseph said harshly.
“Condolences? Why would I-”
“My father died in hospital after you deserted us!” Joseph interrupted.
“Hey Joseph, I'm really sorry. I didn't think that would happen. He didn't look too badly hurt, but I'm no first aid expert. I don't think I was being much use anyway.” Once again there was no response, just silence. “Listen, I think we could trade information that might help us find out who did this, and why. They tried to kill my family yesterday and there may be more targets, more victims.” There was no response again.
Jake decided to carry on with what he was saying. “We can save lives, Joseph. We can bring the real murderers to justice. I will be waiting by the north entrance to South Park, at the end of Victoria Embankment, in half an hour. If you want to know something about these people or how I'm involved you'll meet me there alone. No police, no one but you and me.” Jake waited for a response.
“The officer here will want to know where I'm going. I can't just wander off for no reason,” Joseph said thoughtfully.
“Just make up some excuse. Say you need to walk around the park alone to clear your head. Whatever you want, just get out there if you want to help either of us to understand any of this.” With his last comment Jake hung up the phone. He'd managed to withhold the number but still expected Joseph to find a way to call him back. He fully expected others to be briefed of the contents of the call, but hoped Joseph would go alone.
He wondered whether police had traced the number and whether anyone would try returning the call, but the phone sat idle and there was no sign of anyone calling. He had to clean himself up and get to the park. B
etween the two of them they might be able to come up with answers to their questions and find the killers they were looking for.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Did you get his location?” Joseph asked.
“No sir, but we know he was calling from the northernmost part of town. We can't say whether he was at a phone box or at home, but he probably won't stay there long,” the officer answered.
“Of course he won't if he's going to be in the town centre in half an hour. Did you hear the conversation, though?” There was a nod in response. Joseph asked, by way of confirming what the police were certain to do, “Is there any way of checking out if his family was targeted yesterday?” he asked.
“I'll call the station and ask for crimes reported yesterday and if anyone with the name of Jake was involved, then we'll know whether or not he was lying to you.” The policeman then left the room to make the call.
A couple of minutes later he returned shaking his head. “No sign of any attempt on anyone's life yesterday in Darlington. There was an accident or two but no attack on a family. It looks like this guy was just trying to find some common ground between the two of you so you would trust him.”
“So I don't suppose I'm really meeting this guy in the park, am I?” Joseph asked.
“I think you should,” the officer responded.
“Are you crazy? If this guy's who you think he is he'll-”
“We will have officers hidden nearby to make sure nothing happens to you.” Joseph didn't seem any more assured by that last comment that came by way of interruption. “We may even be able to plant a remote microphone on you so we can hear exactly what's going on.”
With the officer's comments, Joseph grew more and more confident that the meeting could go ahead in complete safety, so he agreed to it. What did he really have to lose now anyway?