Now he’d said the f— word and that clinched everything for me. Sydney—see? I couldn’t even call him Presswell for long—was two people, it seemed: the nice, quiet, soft-toned accountant and respected colleague, and the scheming killer who leaned over Oliver now. The “fuck” confirmed it. Sydney was completely crazy.
His voice was raised; he was almost shouting at Oliver.
“You creative people are always complaining about tight copy dates, lack of time for presentations, overnight layouts and copy ideas, all that crap! But never did you understand the pressure I’m under, and I don’t mean the kind that goes with the job! I’m in deep shit, Oliver, and it’s been coming to a head for some time now. I don’t just mean greedy ex-wives and kids’ school fees. I owe serious money to people who don’t like to wait too long for payment. Money I haven’t got. That is, I haven’t got it right now.”
I practically jumped out of the body I was occupying when he brought the metal rule down hard on the desktop.
“But all that will change once the deal has gone through. I’ve already been asked to stay on as a financial consultant at a higher salary, but the real reward will be the partners’ bonus from Blake & Turnbrow and the large secret commission I’ll receive for brokering the deal in the first place. You and Jim were never supposed to know about that, but I guess in the words of the late, great Buddy Holly, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Somehow I was even more scared now that his voice had resumed its normal, placid pitch.
“So, what’s to be done with you, Oliver?”
Sydney made the question sound reasonable. Mr Nice Guy again.
He answered his own question. “It’s actually very simple. You have to die, of course, but then I’m sure you already knew that. So it begs the question. How are you going to die? Again, the answer is simple. You’re going to take a high dive.”
Another moan from Oliver, a kind of despairing protest.
“Your confession is taken care of—or it will be in a few minutes’ time. All that needs doing is the deed itself. I suppose I’m going to have to drag you over to the windows, aren’t I? No chance of you helping me with that? I thought not.”
I heard him walk across the room, his voice fading slightly.
“I warned you about these floor-to-ceiling windows with that pointless balustrade right outside them, told you both they were dangerous when opened, but you loved the elegant style too much to care. Now you’re about to learn how seriously dangerous they are.”
The sounds of bolts being drawn, a catch turned. Then a fresh breeze pushed at the door I was hiding behind, narrowing the gap. A scuffling noise came from inside, Oliver moaning protests again, a soft dragging sound.
Oh dear God, the moment was here. I had to do something and do it quickly.
I dug a hand into one of the raincoat’s deep pockets, stiffened fingers feeling for the knitting needle I’d put there. My fingertips were numbed, but I forced them closed around the thin weapon, gripping the needle as best I could, slowly drawing it out, afraid I might drop it.
With my other hand, I shoved at the door, sending it wide. I held the needle out in front of me, the lethal tip pointed upwards.
But strength was quickly draining from the body I possessed. The knees were giving way, the raised arm was trembling.
I’m losing it, I thought. I’m losing control!
Sydney Presswell was halfway across the room, Oliver limp in his arms, the copywriter’s feet dragging over the carpet, the French windows open wide before them.
Sydney heard my heavy shambling footsteps. He looked back over his shoulder, saw me, and astonishment stretched his bland features.
43
But as I stood there in the doorway, the knitting needle’s point quivering in my unsteady hand, I knew I no longer had the strength to attack. Moker’s skin felt like a deep-sea diver’s suit, his head like the metal helmet. I felt my own spirit struggling to free itself of the useless body, to discard it like an unnecessary layer. In a few short moments, Oliver would be thrown over the low balcony outside the windows and I shouldn’t—no, I honestly couldn’t, despite what he’d done to me—let that happen. He’d sold me out, stolen my wife, and had cheated me out of the daughter that should have been mine. But he hadn’t killed me. Sydney had done that. Greedy, resentful Sydney Presswell, mild-mannered, easy-going Sydney. Embezzler Sydney. Perverse Sydney. Killer Sydney! And I’d grown too weak to prevent him from killing someone else! Oh, Jesus God, please help me! Give me that last ounce of strength or willpower, whatever it takes to stop Sydney throwing Oliver out the window!
But it was no good—I had hardly anything left. Astonished, surprised, he might be, but there was no fear in Sydney’s eyes, and certainly no shock.
But it was that lack of shock that gave me the idea. And the idea was inspired by the real serial killer.
I had to make Sydney so afraid of me he’d be paralysed if only for a few seconds, like Moker’s victims. It might just give me enough time to stab him with the needle, but in the neck, an easier target than his awkward-to-get-at heart.
I tore at the scarf around my face—no, my arm was too dysfunctional to move swiftly; more accurate to say that I worked at the scarf with my free hand—to get it loose and reveal the deformity that Moker had borne all his life, the facial aberration that had frozen the people he was about to kill for a few crippling seconds.
And in a way, it worked, although in Sydney’s case, fear was not a factor. No, revulsion had replaced the astonishment, disgust at this deformed creature that, for the moment, was interfering with his grand plan. Then something else flickered behind those rimless glasses he wore. Was it recognition? His eyes had left my face to stare at the nasty-looking weapon I held towards him. The sharpened knitting needle. Had he made the connection?
And I think it was this also that sent a fresh pulsing through Moker’s corpse. I don’t know, I’m not absolutely sure about these things, but I thought that maybe whatever remnant of Moker’s psyche was left behind inside his battered brain, or even inside the flesh of his body as a whole, had stirred up memories of a lifetime’s rejection, years of being an outcast, because of normal people’s revulsion of him. The same revulsion that was behind the fear in Sydney’s eyes. Did flesh and blood absorb such soul-rending emotions? Was everything that happened to us throughout our lives recorded, somehow embedded into our very substance? I’ve no idea, but the angry surge now pouring through Moker’s body could not be denied.
Another thought: maybe the anger that brought strength with its flow naturally came from myself, my own spirit. Hadn’t I wept for Moker earlier? Hadn’t I experienced the emotional pain he had felt all his life? Was my sympathy for him, my empathy for him, my anger for him, empowering my own last reserves of willpower? Had Sydney’s undisguised revulsion at the grotesque who stood before him triggered a reaction shared between myself and whatever was left of Moker? I can only guess at the answer.
This returning vitality sent me rushing across the room at Sydney.
Oliver dropped to the floor when Sydney let him go and raised his hands to ward off my attack.
The knitting needle was held high in my hand and I brought it down just before I cannoned into Sydney, aiming for his plump neck but missing, the sharpened point piercing his cheek, an inch below his left eye, my clumsy but fierce momentum pushing him backwards, either the pain or the surprise provoking a shrill shriek, his fear and revulsion turning to horror as he pedalled back, my force and his own panic sending us towards the open windows.
I dug down with the needle, ripping his cheek, and now he screamed, a full-blooded sound, a frightened cry of conviction, this from a man I’d never known to show strong emotion. Blood spurted from his face to join the crusted blood on my forehead as I pushed with strength that was already waning once more, driving us both through the tall open windows onto the foot-wide false balcony outside.
An odd thing happened when we tottered there on the brink of the sixty-feet drop to the shiny wet street below. Sydney, with the back of his knees pressed against the stone balustrade, looked directly into my—into Moker’s—eyes. The moment froze, became meaningless as far as real time was concerned in the way such important moments often do.
Just for that ceaseless instant, his pale-grey eyes widened and I thought I saw recognition in them.
Maybe his guilt, with oblivion or hell a breath or two away, caused his mind to superimpose my real face onto one that was largely absent, because I’m sure his mouth and his voice started to shape my name, the fright in his eyes swapped briefly for a question.
“Ji—?” I’m certain he was about to say, but overbalance tore him away from me.
The half-formed query—if I’m correct in judging it so—swelled into a ferocious scream that withered to a self-pitying wail just before he hit the ground.
The soft mulchy—mushy—crunch that came back at me was awful to hear.