‘What . . . who are you?’ I asked, hardly expecting a reply – I’d become too used to being ignored nowadays.
There was a tenderness in his smile. I saw that his eyes were blue, his hair brown but greying. I knew this man.
‘That doesn’t matter for now,’ I heard the medium say over my shoulder, but the man’s lips forming the words. ‘You must go back, Jimmy. You must go back and stop him. Many others will die if you don’t.’
‘Stop who? D’you mean Oliver, the friend who murdered me?’
A look of dismay swept over his ghostly features. ‘No. The one who lives in shadows, the one whose soul is black. You’ve already met this person, Jimmy, you must put an end to these murders. Find the person who has no face again.’
Somehow I knew instantly who he meant even before the medium spoke.
‘The one with the scissors,’ she said, while the apparition formed the words.
The man who clipped news stories from the papers. The man who lived in the gloomy basement flat. The man with the horribly disfigured face. Rather, the man without a face.
‘No.’ It was a one-word refusal from me. No way did I want to visit that grotesque again. Leave him undisturbed. Leave him to his own obsessions. Even though I was beyond harm these days, the thought of returning to that dark pit repulsed me.
‘You must bring this evil to an end, Jimmy. The murder and defilement must stop.’
I was confused. Mutilation. The killer who I first blamed for my death. The man with the scissors.
‘But there’s nothing I can do,’ I cried out loud. ‘I’m . . . I’m a ghost, like you.’
‘No. You’re not yet that. In time, Jimmy, in . . .’ The medium’s voice was growing softer, the vision before me, and the cowering shapes behind it, beginning to fade.
‘Your time will come, but first . . .’
The sound fading as the ghostly figure dematerialized before my eyes.
‘The power . . .’ his words were waning, dying, then reviving as if a volume control was being manipulated ‘. . . others here . . . afraid of you . . . the link . . . ting weak . . . visit you . . . one . . . time . . . this is over. Take heart . . . must be strong . . . your family . . . danger . . .’
The image – and the voice – was gone, dissolved in front of me. I heard a muted thump and someone shrieked. Wheeling round, I saw that the medium had fallen forward, her head hitting the table. One of the sitters, the plump woman I think, had cried out at the drama.
I stared into the shadowy corner, but there was nothing to see anymore, no fading remnants, no indication whatsoever that the ghosts had truly been there. A memory came to me then, suddenly, without pre-thought. I had seen the ghost who had spoken to me before, but it was many years ago and almost buried by time. I remembered when I had crashed my motorbike at the age of seventeen. I had left my body as a result of the trauma and had observed misty figures watching my unconscious body in the gutter. And I thought of one in particular, one who had tried to speak to me, but either his power or my receptiveness was not strong enough for his words to be clear. He had seemed familiar to me then and I couldn’t understand why at the time. I did now, though.
That man had been the same one who had appeared to me moments before in this clairvoyant’s parlour, the ghost who had spoken to me. I understood beyond any doubt now that this was my father.
26
So that’s why I returned to the horrible dingy basement flat somewhere in west London. It was easy to do, even if I hadn’t wanted to go: I just envisaged it in my mind, and then I was flying, the streets below me almost a blur. Within a few seconds, I was there, in the dimly lit room that had shadows darker than the séance parlour I’d just left. The hideously disfigured man was at home.
I find it difficult to express the consternation and nausea I felt the moment I saw him hunched over his central table, because I was to see a lot worse subsequently, stuff that would revolt me even more. The bent man was feeding. But he was feeding through a straw, sucking up some pulverized mixture into the hole that should have been his face, the slurping-gurgling noise he made as sickening as the sight.
The clear plastic container from a blending machine stood close by on the table – a table whose top was still littered with old newspaper cuttings and a pair of long-bladed scissors, by the way – with only a few dregs of some sludgy liquid remaining. The rest of the murky brown porridge was in the bowl from which the hunched figure drank.
In his black shabby clothes, shoulders rounded and head bent low, he resembled a giant fly sucking through its proboscis, the shit-brown of the liquid compounding the illusion. Even though I was of no substance, I wanted to vomit. Nevertheless, I stayed with him. I could imagine the flat’s foul stench just by looking around at its shoddy state, the black fungi on certain parts of the walls and ceiling, the threadbare carpet, and the open cans of food left in the small kitchen’s sink next door, and for the first time I appreciated having no sense of smell. It was a queer situation to be in, and I mean that by location as well as intention: I had a world outside to explore (if I could work up the ‘interest’), so why contain myself to this nasty hovel when I could float through the wall and visit far more wholesome and entertaining places? But I remained there, not sure why I was obeying a ghost’s plea. A ghost who had mentioned my family . . . and danger . . .
The man with the scissors, the ghost of my father had said. Bring this evil to an end.
Was this hunched person the serial killer, then? Was he the one who had murdered and mutilated all those poor people? The killer Oliver had foolishly tried to emulate? And if not, why then had I been drawn to him in the first place, before the séance, before my father had had the chance to talk to me? This person’s interest in the murders, shown by the press clippings still in disarray on the table, indicated more than just morbid curiosity. It was crazy. I was – used to be – an ordinary man, with precious little regard for otherworldly matters, even though I had the ability to leave my own body at times, so what was I to believe now? I wanted to get out of there, away from this unfortunate but disgusting creature, my conscience chastizing me for such uncharitable thoughts, while my eyes implored me to flee. Besides, I had more interest in seeing Oliver brought to justice rather than this ogre. Selfish, I know, but I couldn’t get over my partner’s betrayal, first with my wife, then the ultimate treachery of murdering me.
I forced myself to linger. Even when this grotesque interrupted his feeding and his body, suddenly tense, looked around at me, I did not retreat. What harm could he do to me? I was already dead. It was freaky though, those coal-black eyes staring at me as if he knew I was there. I metaphorically held my breath and his gaze roamed further, searching the corners of his foul habitat. After a while, he returned to his noisy guzzling and I sighed with relief. But why was it that on both of the other occasions I’d come here he had seemed to sense my presence? What psychic powers did he have? Nobody else had been aware of me since my death, not even my close family – not even my mother – so why this man? Just more questions to the overall mystery of my predicament.11
I would wait, I decided. I would stay here for as long as I could stand it and see what evolved, loathsome though the ordeal might be. What the hell – I had nothing else to do. So I stayed with him through the night, watched him shamble around his tiny, three-roomed flat, saw him mull over his mass of newspaper clippings. He seemed vexed when he picked up the cutting concerning my own terrible demise, and then became angry, striking the tabletop with the heel of his fist several times. I could only assume that he was furious because someone appeared to have stolen his thunder and, having enjoyed the pleasure (the disfigured man must have got some kind of perverted kick out of slaying and mutilation, so would have assumed the copycat killer had experienced the same), this person had put the blame on him. He read the article over and over again and, to my horror, he underlined my home’s vague address with a stubby pencil. I felt a panic when I reasoned why he should do s
o. After a while, he sat up straight and pushed the clipping aside. He stared at the blemished wallpaper on the wall opposite, but his eyes seemed blank, as though he were not studying its faded patterns, but rather thinking inwardly, his eyes dulled as though they were matt-finished, the large cavity in his face oozing spittle and a yellowish pus-like substance that ran down his half-formed chin. I would have liked to have looked away from him, but somehow his deformity held me mesmerized. God, what had this man gone through in life? Had he been born with this deep wound where his nose and mouth should have been, or had some tragic accident occurred to render him so? What kind of world did he live in? What mental torment he must have been through. Did he have an occupation, or did his deformity force him to hide away permanently, venturing out only with his hat and scarf concealing his lack of normal features? And was it the ugliness in his face that had caused the ugliness in his soul? I almost felt sorry for him, but quickly remembered he was a killer who had chopped up the bodies of his victims.
Perhaps it was odd that never for a moment did I doubt that he was the serial killer the police were looking for, but everything about him – his interest in the newspaper clippings concerning the murders, the dark aura that surrounded him, even the black brooding atmosphere of the flat itself – indicated to me that there was something very wrong with this man and it had nothing to do with his deformity. And when he shuffled over to a corner cupboard and took out something wrapped in rough cloth my curiosity was roused further. Something, or things, clicked together as he laid the bundle on the table and unravelled it. Several long – about one-foot long – grey knitting needles lay exposed and I saw that their coated steel points had been honed into something lethal.
I stayed in that frightening and depressing place for the rest of the night, watching the disfigured man, listening to his guttural breathing, seeing him sort through his pile of newspaper clippings, avoiding contact with him as he paced the room in his dark raincoat. Occasionally, he would return to the table and pick up the accounts of my murder as if they had some special significance to him (and I realized it had, for, if the police were right, this was one of the murders he did not commit). His breathing became heavier and more coarse each time he scanned the cut-out pages, and he would throw them back onto the table, his anger barely contained, only to pace the floor again for ten minutes or so, then pick the clippings up once more. It was a pattern that went on for some time and it confirmed in my mind that he really was deranged. I could only keep to one shadowy corner, ready to move each time he approached, afraid of him even though I knew I could not be harmed anymore, freezing each time he seemed to look directly at me, as if he sensed I was there. At these moments, he himself, would become very still, and his protrusive eyes would beam their curiosity and malice. I felt as though I were looking into the eyes of evil incarnate and I never held their gaze for long, always averting my face and cowering, ready to make a break for it should he advance any further.
He never did though. Instead, his shoulders would slump and he’d continue his pacing or return to the table with its wild spread of newspaper articles and dirty bowl and blender jug, which he had not yet bothered to clear away. I’ve no idea how long it was before he decided to turn in for the night, because I seemed to be losing track of time in some small way, but eventually he turned out the feeble light in the main room and went through to his bedroom. I had no wish to be present when he undressed – what other horrors might his naked round-shouldered body reveal – so I remained in my corner, which was now pitch black, the only light coming from the open doorway. After some thumps – probably shoes being dropped – and some groans – were other, hidden disfigurements causing him pain? – I heard him urinating (presumably a toilet or bathroom adjoined the bedroom), then a flush. Padded footsteps as he returned to the bed, then the creak of old springs.
I listened as he grumbled to himself, once in a while his voice rising to an angry unformed roar, and eventually there came the unlovely sound of his snoring, a rasping squeezed exhalation followed by a rough droning intake of breath. I explored the rest of the flat in the darkness (the bedroom light had been turned off just before he’d climbed into bed and the only illumination came down from a street light on the pavement above the basement steps), but found nothing of importance, nothing that might reveal this man’s identity. Dishes and plates were stacked up unwashed in the sink, the plastic bin beneath it overloaded with rubbish, some of which – a milk carton, half an egg shell, an empty tin of beans – had spilled onto the floor. Going back to the main room I forced myself to sit on the lumpy, magazine-strewn couch, its outline only just discernible in the weak light from the basement window. Again, I was grateful that I no longer had a sense of smell.
I suppose I fell into a deep sleep, because the next thing I knew there was grey twilight showing through the grimy glass of the window and my host was shuffling about the room. It looked as though he was preparing to leave. With dismay I realized I must have slept or blacked out for a whole night and most of the next day.
27
I followed him up the stone steps to street level. He wore the same dark raincoat and scarf muffler as yesterday, only those bulging eyes barely visible in the shadow of the hat’s brim. It was a drizzly and apparently cold autumn morning, for other pedestrians wore rain-coats or topcoats, one or two carrying open umbrellas. I had no idea what time it was, but it felt like late afternoon. God, had I been asleep (or just oblivious) while he dressed and took meals, unaware of me as I’d been unaware of him?
His shoulders hunched even more than usual, as if shrinking into himself so as not to be noticed, he made his way along a line of vehicles parked in resident-only bays, and I followed two feet behind him, the light rain passing right through me. He stopped by an ancient Hillman Minx, a grey tank of a car that must have been manufactured in the last century’s fifties. The wheel arches were rusted, the door panels pitted and scored, the windows as grimy as those in the flat we’d just left, smeared arcs caused by wipers relieving the wind-screen of some of the dirt. I noticed there was a parking permit stuck to the inside of the windscreen, but when I peered closer it gave no owner’s name, only the vehicle registration.
The man unlocked the car door and climbed in, so I passed through the rear passenger door and settled into the wide seat. Like his home, the interior was untidy, bits of paper and debris – a lidless can of frost spray, a battered A to Z, an empty milk carton, used straws – littering the floor both front and back. The leather upholstery was split in places and a soiled rag lay on the passenger seat beside the driver. The man ducked low, pushing something underneath his seat, tucking it away out of sight; I hadn’t registered the fact that he had been carrying something under his arm as he’d made his way to the car, and it was this that he was concealing. Something inside the cloth-wrapped bundle clicked, a recognizable sound. He’d brought the knitting needles with him.
Before I could wonder why, he pushed the key into the ignition and switched on the engine. It moaned its reluctance to start and he made another two attempts before the engine finally turned over and settled to an uneasy murmur. Immediately he pushed the gear lever – so ancient was the Hillman that it was a column shift on the steering wheel – into first, then pulled away from the kerb; it was only when we left the sidestreet and turned into the main road that I realized I’d got my timing wrong, for the pavements were busy with people, all the shops and offices lit up, the road itself crowded with traffic. It was early evening and not the afternoon. How had I been asleep so long? Why hadn’t his movement in the flat aroused me earlier? Then again had I really slept that long, or was this merely another slippage in time? There was no way of knowing; I wasn’t yet familiar enough with my condition to be able to tell. All I knew was that at certain times I fell asleep, or simply blacked out, so that my spirit, soul, consciousness, whatever I was, rested, or renewed itself. I did, in fact, feel a little fresher each time I ‘awoke’ so I could only assume that even my
state required its rest and replenishment. It seemed mundane, but I supposed that incorporeal existence paralleled normal life to some extent, the mind continuing to follow a familiar pattern. Maybe in the unknown you instinctively comforted yourself with the known, or perhaps a lifetime’s habit was hard to break even in death.
As he drove on, it took only a few minutes for me to realize we were in the Shepherd’s Bush area and I watched people going about their business, unaware that some strange kind of ghost was travelling through their midst. How I envied their humdrum lives, how I wished I was part of the system again, a living, breathing person with all the problems, heartaches and joy that went with the human condition. The world I now lived in was no fun at all and I began to wonder if I was in purgatory, the stage between life and death that some religions – especially my own – told us we had to pass through before reaching our paradise (or heaven, as we called it). And if that were the case, part of my redemption might lie in preventing this monster from murdering more innocents. What the hell, I had nothing else to do with my time, and I could no longer be harmed myself, so why not go along with it? It certainly seemed important to the spirit I now believed to be my father. How I could stop the sick lunatic I had no idea, but hoped that something would present itself along the way.
My thoughts returned to the driver of this clapped-out vehicle and I studied the back of his head from the rear seat. His low snuffles were occasionally interrupted by deliberate snorts, his reaction to other drivers who irritated him with their careless manoeuvring. Again, the sickness of his aura disturbed me as much as the man himself, the muddy radiation sending off dispiriting vibes that I felt must surely unsettle the living people he came in contact with. It’s odd that some individuals can take an instant dislike to certain other people they’ve just met, which can only be put down to the chemistry between them. I now believe that dislike or aversion had more to do with the sensing of aura than any chemical reaction (maybe it amounted to the same thing, who could tell? Certainly not me); probably, the opposite was also true, attraction being just as easily influenced by a compelling aura. Maybe this was the answer to the mystery of ‘love at first sight’.12