Darkness Dominates - Chapter 7

It was two in the morning as Marcus wandered past a string of majestic front doors. Behind them all were residences that only aristocratic families could live in. He stopped walking when he came to the fifth house along. Not much of the external structure had differed from the day the building work had been completed, but it was cleaner. After a century of the Cartwright family living at that address, a newer dynasty claimed it as their castle. He was tortured by him having no further right to refer to it as his home, not even in the past tense, and by there being no funeral service or burial waiting for him. Bowing his head loosely, he finished off a bottle of wine he took from a gentleman’s club in Kensington he still was a member of. This was the fourth one to be emptied in less than two hours. The slurring of speech and lumbering coordination never materialised, though. He had to make do with three appearances of the most obvious way to physically identify the species he evolved into in less than a day – the vampire. Alcohol was of no value in helping to lose control of all civilised inhibitions; they were intact, and still were when he reached the residence he was embarrassed to call home. It was the insidious reflection of how far he’d fallen from the society that had made him a gentleman. That was the price of the immortality rewarded to him by Lady Emilia Rawlinson. She promised him living forever in the world was worth far more than love or riches. He would have kept that guarantee close to his heart had it kept its perceived truthfulness. Marcus first saw the real version of her truth when he strolled through a room full of men scarred, injured and dying. They were all wearing the same uniform as him, but his body was not missing any limbs or sporting disfigurement that would sicken those who only accepted beauty and nothing else. His skills as a man of medicine and science helped some to recover from their wounds, but he was no master of reaching into their minds. He learned the hard way that not all wounds are visible or solid. Through each gulp of wine, he felt the searing hatred for the woman who’d brought him a false paradise. He doubled his liquor-soaked rage by picturing the poster that reminded British men that their country needed them. He was no longer certain of what that meant for the nation or in the future.

“Well, the future is going to answer that conundrum anyway – I jolly well will be there to witness it” he said without dropping a vowel or mispronouncing a word.

He was still in full possession of his faculties and he felt depressed every occasion that he realised it. Responding to his defeat in getting drunk until he passed out, he hurled the bottle into the Thames. He had ended up there because he wasn’t caring where his feet were taking him. The destination was irrelevant: it was the reason that mattered. He was here because an hour in a place that was empty of comfort made him long to be far away from walls, floors and ceilings; they were suddenly less inviting than a dungeon. Death couldn’t visit him, and he was persistently made to the feel the century-long hurt of watching men he’d known as boys turn into weak, sickly old men. The sorrow it created was rehashed when Kitchener sent young men into a battle with an enemy that outmatched the British military might. Marcus almost didn’t volunteer but Emilia used her influence to make him a captain. The inducement she gave him was that the blood of the wounded was richer than the few who escaped any kind of injury. He opted only to drink from the soldiers who were dying, much to the scathing disappointment of Lady Rawlinson. His memory of who survived and who didn’t was an optimistic one. He didn’t know anyone who survived: the small number of acquaintances and friends he’d made during the four years he wore his uniform had gone by 1918.

Maudlin emotions were striking hammer blows against the walls of indifference Emilia helped build around him. Three years into the period of peace this country was revelling in and he couldn’t shake either the horrors he’d seen around him or the burgeoning horror at his own existence. A cloud of mist dancing around Tower Bridge distracted Marcus from his poisoned introspection. It was at least twelve feet away, but it was a sight no-one who might be out this late could miss. This example of nature’s spectacles reminded him of the last time he saw Emilia. In three days, it would be the first anniversary of them parting company. The end of their association – it could in no way be termed a friendship or a romantic liaison – was riddled with acrimony of the most stringent kind. After draining the blood, and life, from a six-month old baby girl, with Lady Rawlinson watching him the whole time, he fled London and became a squatter in a deserted country cottage for a whole fortnight. His immense guilt at taking the life of a child transformed itself into a beast-like rage, and Emilia bore the brunt. But she wasn’t experiencing misery: she derived an extremely perverse pleasure from each act of violence perpetrated by him. Every bit of furniture in the cottage was smashed against her body, but her repeated reaction was more akin to the noise representing an orgasmic climax. With nothing left to use a weapon to wound her as badly as he could, he resorted to a psychological manoeuvre, and started heaping a petulant-driven sense of shame upon their shared existence. He organised his words carefully enough to break through Emilia’s invisible armour.

“You and I have no right to say we deserve immortality.”

This comment smacked Emilia up sharp. She slapped his face, ricocheting him several steps in a backward movement.

“Never present yourself as reluctant to do what you’ve done” she stated ferociously. “We exist as the harbingers of death!”

Disturbed by the conviction with which she expressed that malevolent an attitude, Marcus lurched himself at Emilia and started to drink her blood. He only consumed less than a pint before she threw him across the whole of the cottage’s downstairs room. He landed against the right-hand wall and it crumbled away. The building then collapsed in on itself, covering the combatants in an avalanche of debris. Their burial was temporary: they each dug themselves out. Lady Rawlinson stared at Marcus with a harsh intensity in her eyes he’d never seen before. This was the precursor to Emilia taking her turn to prove how much malicious violence she could be capable of. He endured double what he’d dished out. At the end of her retaliation, she screamed out “How dare you feed on me!” He had never considered an action such as that to be taboo. She backed two feet away and said stonily “You’re on your own.” In the silence that followed, he savoured the relief of this partnership’s dissolution. He turned his back to her and kept walking away, never adopting a single stance suggesting a change of heart. Their exile from each other was the only delightful aspect of what he had gone through, only to emerge from the other end of it in this state.

When sunlight spread along the banks of the Thames, Marcus was to be found on a bench. Because of his biological invulnerability, the chill of the early morning air failed to open him to the common cold or to flu-related illnesses. He woke up and felt nothing that indicated he was about to come down with some malady. An elderly couple approached the bench, passing on eye gestures to him that alerted him to realise they wanted to rest their legs. He infused what gentlemanly qualities he had at this time of the morning and vacated the bench for their benefit.

“Thank you sir” they individually said, a minute apart.

He decided to walk down towards where the left-hand bank passed Greenwich. There was no-one and nothing there that warranted him paying a visit to that area of London. He simply wanted to stretch his legs, which was hardly necessary. Marcus didn’t have any circulation problems in his lower thigh muscles. Every few minutes, he moved his head to get a peek at the people strolling leisurely behind him. Most of the faces of the individuals changed as they found the locations in the city they were trying to reach. One didn’t, though. When most of the crowd made their way to the right, a blonde-haired woman dressed in a Countess’ outfit stayed on the river bank’s concourse and kept a distance that wasn’t supposed to arouse the suspicion in someone they were being followed. The ruse was pathetic. Someone with half the IQ Marcus possessed could have worked out they were being shadowed in over ten minutes – Cartwright needed half that. He pretended to turn a corner to see if he was really being tailed. She stood near the river’s railings for a moment but then copied the sudden-direction change. He doubled back and pushed his arm around the neck of the woman who was soon keen to mimic the route he was taking to Greenwich.

“Here for the observatory” Marcus aggressively asked her.

“Here for you, Marcus Cartwright” said the fair-haired stranger.

“How do you know my name?”

“The answer to that can wait.”

“Talking of names, I would like to know yours.”

“Emma Houghton-Bowes.”

He knew she hadn’t given her true name, but he was more interested in what she wanted with him. Marcus was content in forecasting that she would at some point tell him what her parents had called her when she had been born.

“What do you want with me?”

“At last, the question I wanted to hear you ask. To show you something that won’t make you so hateful of the existence you’ve had for over a century.”

A curtain of mist drifted by the woman talking to Marcus: suddenly, it developed a smell like steam. The more transparent it got, the more his nose picked up the expanding odour. Involuntarily, he put his hand on the railings overlooking the water moving through the Thames. He snatched it away and looked at it as if were Marcus’ arch-nemesis. Instead of the barrier stopping people falling into the river, he saw his hand was on the side of his kettle.

“How’s your hand” said Sophie Pryce.

“Its’...its’ fine”

Two consecutive glances to both sides of his current surroundings revealed he was in his kitchen. A memory had somehow taken hold of his consciousness, but his hands were still doing things he did in the present.

“How did you get in, Sophie?”

“You let me in.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, we were talking and I mentioned a trip to London that Mark and I are thinking of taking in a few weekends time, and you started staring into space.”

Marcus put his right hand up to his forehead. His eyes narrowed.

“Getting a headache?”

“No, just an intense thought. Sorry about this, but I forgot why you called round to my house.”

“To talk to you about my big sister and your pal, Catherine”

“Does Jade know you’re here?”

“Christ, Marcus! That must’ve been some daydream you had!”

“I’m not with you.”

“You so weren’t – I told you that she doesn’t know I’m here when I walked through the door.”

Sophie saw Marcus’ phone display exhibiting Ms Henfield’s face, name and number.

“Is your phone on silent?”

“It is, since you asked” said Dr Cartwright.

“Well, Cathy’s calling you?”

He touched the correct symbol to take her call.

“Jade isn’t here!” he said snappily.

“I know – she’s here with me” said Catherine via the receiver on Marcus’ mobile.

“I had another of my flashbacks – Miss Houghton-Bowes!” he said to Catherine teasingly.

“Is someone with you, Marcus?”

“Yeah, Catherine – Sophie, Jade’s little sister.”

“Well then, don’t address me by that name if you’ve got company!”

“Right you are.”

“Once I’m done at where I work, I’m dropping by at your house in about an hour. Exercise what diplomacy you have and find a way to get Sophie to leave without making her suspicious.”

Marcus couldn’t dare to repeat Catherine’s instruction in front of Sophie. Jade’s younger sibling had to remain in the dark about her sister being with Cartwright’s neighbour and fellow immortal.

“I am sorry, but I’m due to do a two-hour shift at Royal Bolton shortly, so I’m going to have to set off in a minute or two. We can continue this conversation another time.”

“How about during a second chance at a double-date”

“After what happened at Gladstone’s, I sincerely doubt Jade would go for it.”

“She might. Anyway, I’ll let you think it over”

Marcus observed every step of Sophie’s departure from his house, without making her feel she was being pushed out hurriedly. They waved to one another and Marcus waited until she disappeared behind a long hedge.

 

Catherine closed the door to her office to stop any overly curious worker from seeing what’s inside the room before they saw too much. She locked the door from the inside too.

“Why did you do that?”

“To stop people getting in: I don’t want anybody interrupting us! I have a shitload of talking to do and I need you to listen well to what I have to say.”

“So it’s a lecture!”

“If that’s how you choose to see it, then yes, it is a lecture.”

“Is there a Q&A session afterwards?”

Jade’s query wasn’t mean to be serious, but since Catherine was keen to get down to business, she hadn’t grasped the sarcastic flavour the irate Detective Constable had seasoned the question with.

“Naturally, there will be – I had plenty myself the day I kissed my ageing process goodbye, but only a select few were answered.”

The use of a contemporary phrase indicative of the present day tapped into Jade’s initial understanding of what Catherine was getting at. She was astonished by the nonchalant way Ms Henfield said the word vampire: there was no incredulity in her voice. Jade was disappointed. She wanted the get out clause that she had imagined the animalistic molars growing of their own accord, the savage demise of Leon Harris, and the sight of her boyfriend sinking the incisors that made a brief appearance in his mouth into one spot on her neck. The last of these three recollections had manifested itself just now. The clarity with which DC Pryce replayed her moment of transformation was a new factor in this memory. It opened all the significant elements that only the mind could collect together. None of them were visual, so her brain had to do what her eyes couldn’t. What connected these internally-received pockets of information was that they showed her, in word form, the consequences of the mode of living Marcus had shunted her into and that they directly involved the members of her family. Then, the visualisation of what her immortality meant for her mum & dad and her sister included images of Jade watching them all die of old age. The visions eroded her emotional impartiality and the tear duct of her left eye, let out a comet of water cascade at lightning speed down the cheek on that side of her face. Barely a moment afterwards, her right eye decided to join in. Jade hadn’t applied any eyeliner, so she never sported panda eyes. The absence of make-up darkening the top half of her tear tracks spared her losing dignity whilst expressing sheer sorrow and anger simultaneously. The emotion driving both began to let her fury take over. Jade’s eyes were steadily conveying the heightened feelings as they ascended. Catherine could feel the build-up but she wasn’t going to do a U-turn in spelling out to her what she now was. She couldn’t control another person’s emotions steaming ahead like a runaway train and she wasn’t in favour of trying to staunch them either.

“You’re a vampire!”

Jade tried to lessen the impact of these three words, but she couldn’t filter out the incontrovertible physical evidence that she was what Catherine said.

“I don’t want to hear it” pleaded Jade.

 “You have to! There isn’t any other way to tell you than this. How long you remain immortal is dependent on you.”

The coldness of the way Catherine had stated the set of circumstances awaiting Jade made the CID officer’s reaction burn with the strength of a bush fire, rampaging out of control. She used this tempestuous outburst to highlight the inconsistencies of Ms Henfield’s announcement.

“I don’t burn in the daylight and neither do you or Marcus; I’m not afraid of churches, crucifixes or holy water; my heart still works and I can breathe; I don’t have the desire to sleep in coffins – so how can I be a vampire?”

Her own incredulity was there, but Jade made it harsher as she yelled the reasons she felt none of this could be true at Catherine. The constituent words added to the sense of denial DC Pryce was taking shelter behind.

“I can’t give you the how, Jade – none of my kind can. The mythology can do nothing for you but to give you the fantastical side of the way I and others like me live. We are not supernatural beings. From dawn to dusk, there is nothing to separate us from mortal humans. The vampires within us only come out when it is night: the darkness then dominates our senses, our strength.”

Jade didn’t think Catherine was making a good job of acclimatising her to being a vampire. Right now, she saw her as a salesman and not someone who could make sense of something she still thought was an unreality. This pressure suddenly made listening to Catherine temporarily unbearable and she lost the ability to keep her emotions in check. Jade stood up and at the top of her voice she yelled “You have no fucking intention of helping me come to terms with this! What’s worse, you’re even less willing to answer me about the E-mail you sent Kara! All you’re shitting well focussed on is making what I’ve been forced into becoming fall in line with your own agenda! What about my family? I’ve got the fucking awful business of staring into the eyes of my sister and my parents as they die, whilst I retain my youthful looks forever! That’s the most painful truth about immortality, and you want me to accept that – well, why the fuck should I do that? You don’t know what its’ like, so give over with this lecturing crap!”

“Yes I fucking do!” Catherine suddenly roared. “I had a family two centuries ago, but I outlived them! Do you think that was a picnic? Do you think I revelled in having the chance to live forever? Well, if you do – you’re wrong on every pissing level! I spent ninety-eight years hating the very core of my existence – but then I realised that I can’t hate what I can’t control. It was that fact and no other which eased me into accepting that I was never going to age anymore! So, don’t act as if you alone have the burden of your family growing old and you not ageing with them – I’ve had to live with it, and I’m still pissing well living with it!”

Still emotionally fragile, Jade responded with “You know what, Cathy – you can forget me staying for the hour – I’m seeing Marcus now!”

“He’ll only tell you the same thing I told you. Talking to him won’t make it easier for you psychologically!”

“Oh, you think I’m going there to talk to him!”

Catherine had no doubt about the meaning of Jade’s parting remark. Forgetting that it was still the daytime, DC Pryce tried to pull the locked office door from its hinges. Its refusal to budge decreased her determination to escape these surroundings and vent her turmoil out on Marcus.

“Do you feel better for that?”

Jade shook her head and returned the seat on the other side of the desk to Catherine.

“I didn’t think you would.”

“So what was the answer you promised to give me regarding the E-mail you sent to Kara?”

The question symbolised a definite stance to stop Catherine reneging on the one condition Jade had insisted upon.

“What answer?”

“Don’t bullshit me, Catherine! You said you were going to give me the answer you previously refused to!”

“I was, but I don’t think you’re ready for the explanation: you’re not in the right frame of mind.”

“Says you”

Catherine kept tight-lipped, in spite of Jade’s refusal to let the matter go until Ms Henfield made good on her promise. The silent treatment was clearly making Pryce’s mood more volatile.

“Unlock the door” said Jade in a seething tone.

Rising from her office chair, Catherine got up, walked over to the door and unlocked it.

“Go see Marcus then, Detective Constable!”

Her adherence to what Jade wanted almost sounded like a challenge. Denied the answer she was expecting Catherine to reveal, DC Pryce opened the unlocked door and started to walk through it.

“He’s at my house: I told him to wait there!”

Jade stopped. She half-turned her head to Ms Henfield, but continued her departure a moment later.

Whilst walking through the car park to get back to the main road, she obtained the feeling that Catherine had deliberately revealed where Marcus was located. The conclusion had pushed its way past her other thoughts waiting in the queue and was still there when she tried to hail down a cab. All the ones she saw coming her way zoomed past her. None of the drivers within displayed any inclination of picking up passengers who were stood by the kerb. An approaching bus was Jade’s last resort in getting to where she wanted to be. She hurried over to the bus shelter it was heading to. The display above its windscreen informed DC Pryce that Dunning Park was one of the stops along its route through Bolton; its principal destination, though, was Salford. She stuck her arm out. It began to slow, but it ground to a halt about several inches past the bus stop. Jade boarded, paid the fare to the entrance to Dunning Park, and took one of the fold-up seats in front of the ones that were nestled side-by-side, at both halves of the vehicle. Within a minute, she was given a more down-to-earth reason to feel like a stranger amongst the passengers who’d already found somewhere to sit. She was already aware of the utterly abnormal one, but she was being exposed to its mundane equivalent. Her constant use of the car she owned had put her out of sync with what travelling by bus entailed, beginning with the most irritating fact about public transport – the inflated duration of waiting at each stop. This was down to the abolition of bus conductors. The driver assuming those duties lengthened the journey by at least five or six minutes. With traffic jams, it frequently climbed to double or even treble that.

To make the time go whistling by, Jade glanced around the lower deck to observe the faces of the commuters around her. At the heart of this endeavour were Marcus and Catherine. The success they had at blending into the society that kept changing around them set Jade off wondering whether anyone on this bus happened to be a vampire. Although her mum had told her on a number of occasions it was rude to stare too long at someone, she could do nothing else. Voicing her suspicion that there might be a bloodsucker amongst the collection of passengers would invite the maximum amount of ridicule: so it became something quite out of the question for her to attempt. She made sure that she only looked in their direction for a few seconds each. If someone did object to be glanced at like that, Jade could make up the excuse that she was just looking around to stave off boredom – it was one of those people were quite ready to take as red. But after four-fifths of the excursion on this bus service, she couldn’t support continuing this weird pastime. It was making her facial expressions outwardly appear too intense, and on public transport, this could easily attract undue attention: the kind nobody who wanted to think during their journeys could be doing with. Jade cleared this stupid visual game out of her head and started to think about what she was going to say to Marcus. The problem with that was automatically identified: no discussion in the history of relationships between men and women contained the questions she knew she was going to put to him. The position she had been placed in made her feel rage again, but she had spent the last fifth of the bus ride encasing it in a sphere of logic. She knew that this was the healthiest mindset to have whilst she confronted Marcus about his actions. It was almost shifted slightly out of balance when a young man wearing a rugby shirt over a muscularly toned body decided he was going to be the one to get off ahead of her – one of the daily signs that being gentlemanly was so last week. Yet there’d been so many males in that age group guilty of that lack of courtesy, Jade had ceased to judge these instances as unusual. He acted as if DC Pryce wasn’t there, but she opted to move that detached ounce of anger back onto the mental picture of Marcus that kept appearing. She felt it would do no good spreading it any wider. The man with the rugby T-shirt’s misdeed was tiny compared to Marcus’. The argument that he had prevented her from shuffling off her mortal coil was now flimsy: as far as she was concerned, all he had done was to make her like him to satisfy his own emotional needs. She found nothing noble about his actions. This specific point was threaded into the first question she came out with when Marcus opened Catherine’s front door to Jade.

 

“Why didn’t you just let me die?”

Dr Cartwright wasn’t too shocked by the ingratitude of the query. He’d had an inkling that her character was going to trigger this reaction to staying the age she’d reached forever. Marcus hadn’t been thankful for the gift of eternal youth; he too speculated whether he could get a refund. However, the answer he had prepared came from the mouth of someone who had accepted his lot fully: a symptom of how Catherine had worked on his attitude until it matched her current one.

“I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Its overt sentimentality angered her more. She couldn’t bear to hear that level of soppiness being used as his way of bringing his love for her into this matter.

“Stop talking to me like I’m your girlfriend!” snapped Jade.

“How can I – that’s what you are to me!”

“No, that’s your vision of what I am to you: right now, it isn’t mine! I don’t know what I am to you, Marcus!”

Jade repeated the question she’d greeted him with. She then warned him to be honest and not to go down the path of expressing sickly romanticism. He pulled her inside and closed the door behind her before coming out with the answer closest to the truth.

“Because you are the only woman I’ve ever met that made me glad to be immortal.”

What she heard still had slight romantic overtones, but it seemed more genuinely honest than the last answer Jade had received. The reply he gave, however, didn’t reduce her volatility.

“I am not your fucking salvation, Marcus! I don’t know how many women you’ve known or whether any of them ended up like me – but I refuse to be thought of a way out of your loneliness!”

This new outpouring of anger began giving Jade mental projections of the types of death she would have had. All were horrific and gruesome. One vision surged to the extremities of what was graphic and harrowing about the final moments of any human. The subsequent images which passed through her mind prompted her to hyperventilate.

“Take some water”

Marcus’ right hand settled on Jade’s left shoulder, but she snatched herself away. His gentle side was like acid burning her skin. Every facade of normality he had portrayed inside his relationship with her had the same intensity as that liquid mutilating the flesh. She ventured to the kitchen and opened the cutlery drawer. Locating the sharpest knife, she pressed the lower edge of it on her wrist and suddenly made a gash across her left wrist that penetrated a vein. Blood started to spurt and bubble up from the incision, but it didn’t get to the stage where she would begin haemorrhaging externally. The skin meshed together as if it were being zipped up. Dark reddish stains from the short-lived geyser still covered the area around the cut. She was dismayed that wounding herself was proving to be impossible again

“What will it take to make my immortality go away?” screamed Jade.

“You can’t make it go away, Jade! Once you become a vampire, there is no reversal!”

She walked over to Marcus: her feet guided by her tempestuous reactions. Grabbing his arms gave him the false impression this was a physical act of affection. Her hands then manoeuvred his firmly onto her throat and covered his fingers and knuckles with her palms. Jade put pressure on them to ensure she was being strangled. He tried to loosen the grip, but she doubled her effort to keep it firm.

“Kill me!” she said croakily. “Squeeze the fucking life out of me!”

DC Pryce did what she could to maintain this method of ending her existence, but when she had a vision of her looking at a family photo, she lost her nerve and slackened the tension in her hands. Marcus didn’t waste a single second in rapidly moving his hands away. She coughed fiercely for a minute and then stuck her head under the tap to get a drink of water. The action of slurping the downward vertical flow brought her out of the fury-based, suicidal state. She moved herself along by the bottom of her hands to quicken the exit from the kitchen. Jade, still panting lightly, sought a return to reason on Marcus’ sofa in the living room. Here, she had numerously entertained the chance to jump his bones. But this new purpose was free of sexual intent. She was trying to decide which person she wanted to be. Jade had been happiest having one existence: she didn’t need to think about balancing between two. Even being a police officer and someone’s daughter were two halves of herself she could blend together without taking too much from both facets. This attitude prevented emotional overloading, but the protection from that circumstance was effectively stolen by Marcus. She couldn’t stop the subsequent meltdown, and had to let it occur before she was in a frame of mind to seek answers instead of flying off the handle. Yet, the sight of her making redundant attempts to commit suicide pulled her anger into his current set of feelings. A compassionate rage overcame him and his subconscious was refusing to stop it breaking out.

“You stupid fucking bitch: do you have any idea how I was feeling when I saw that you were doing? I thought I could keep you at arm’s length because I was hiding the vampire side of me! It was easier in the day, but it was hell for me at night! If I came across as unwilling to open up, it’s because of that one reason – it was the one pissing fact I wanted to share with you! Your imminent death made me realise that I could only be a part of your life if you became immortal! Don’t throw that back in my face! I fucking well love you! That should mean more to you than the downside to our existence!”

However much pride she was clinging onto, there was no longer cause to deny his words made sense to her – she only wished she could grapple with the concept of her immortal status. Marcus was panting too as he allowed this rage to make its departure, but it was still a little too malignant to all go at once. Very small pools of it were forming and it presented the danger they would somehow spread out to one another and merge back into a lake of anger. They were also reconstituting themselves in Jade’s aura. Three became conjoined when she registered he’d said “That should mean more to you than the downside to our existence!” Her buttons had been pushed again. The lingering traces of hostility had boiled up. Out of the blue, DC Pryce started slapping Marcus. The first succession of blows to his right-hand cheek had a three-second or so gap partitioning each one off, but with anger getting stronger for the second time, they were more compacted into each other and relentless. Forgetting how wrong it was to hit a woman in this day and age, Marcus’ fist found its way into the left side of his girlfriend’s face. She didn’t keel over. Her right hand supported her weight on that side, and she pushed herself back up to stand. She moved her feet and ankles apart a little, equalizing her weight. Referring to the punch as an embrace, Jade yelled out to Marcus “Kiss me again!” Rage was now taking hold of their combined senses. They now joint monopoly of it. Jade stood firm as four more punches landed on the same part of her face. Blood and snot gathered together beneath her nostrils, but she didn’t wipe it away, and Marcus was no longer storing up guilt about inflicting violence on the woman he loved. The playing field was even; one ball propelled from both sides could go in either goal. She glanced at him and then at a corner of the skirting board. Her left hand clenched and she manoeuvred her arm to gather strength into the most prominent muscle in that arm. The muscular tension resulted in a punch that took away Marcus’ balance. He toppled onto his back. She ran towards him and jumped onto his body.

Jade spread out her arms and rammed his wrists squarely onto the floor. It was a way of arresting someone that a police sergeant once used. She was putting her recollection of it into practice, but it barely masked the thin line between sex and violence Jade and Marcus were crossing. He acted as if he was showing resistance, but the ploy was flimsily executed. The areas she was pressing down the hardest on were the points where a pulse gets taken to determine signs of life. Marcus’s was running wild, contradicting one of the core certainties people attached to vampires. His emotions were at this moment feeding off her inner brutality, and the harder she bore down, the more he picked up on her real feelings. Employing reverse psychology, he said “Punch me!”

He didn’t have to repeat it. Jade had already latched onto this countermove. She whipped her hands away and her mouth descended mercilessly onto his lips. Their jaws were open wider than expected for kissing, and it looked like they were devouring each other’s faces than sharing a smooch. They pulled their mouths away to get some air but their carnal emotions hadn’t simmered down. She got to her feet first and pulled Marcus to his directly after. The displays of anger they exchanged had wound the clock back mentally to the state of their relationship preceding the row in Gladstone’s and the business with DCI Oliver temporarily losing control of his own investigation. Their internal opinions were now connected by one conclusion: Catherine was this situation’s ‘ground zero’: their negative feelings had reignited the spark that fizzled out as a consequence. The pair of them thrust themselves back into that kiss: Jade jumped up athletically whilst caught up in the embrace and mounted his waist by wrapping her legs around it – Marcus returned her show of affection by putting his arms across the back of her shoulders. They didn’t remember, or particularly care, that the bedroom they were heading to upstairs was Catherine’s. He waddled as he took the additional weight to the front of his person. The kiss showed no signs of winding down and they were even using tongues as they made their illicit entry into Ms Henfield’s bedroom.

Catherine had timed the journey back to her house precisely. She was quite adept at knowing how long couples needed to work their issues out, even if it didn’t come across to others that she actually gave a shit. Going into the room they’d previously been in, she immediately saw the kitchen utensil with the blood on it. Catherine picked it up and took it straight to the sink. The sound of the tap water didn’t have a high enough volume to cover the heavy muffled foot movements overhead. When she heard them go from the left and then come to a halt in the midway area of the ceiling, she didn’t require her brain to work out what they were up to. She nearly succumbed to her first impulse – to demand they vacate the one room that was the most private. Catherine was halfway up the stairs when thinking about it a little more made her decide to do nothing about it whatsoever. To act as if nothing sexual was afoot, she walked into the room where she watched TV, when she got the chance to.

Twenty-three minutes later, the rumpus on the first floor was all over. Jade and Marcus had dumped their sexual energies by biblical means. The clothes they’d wildly ditched had gotten mixed on the carpet they landed on. Jade’s minimal movement under the quilt cover led to the accidentally exposure of her left leg. She wiggled her foot about in the shape of a badly-drawn circle. Three of her toes flexed in harmony to the physical manoeuvre. She then relaxed that foot and moved her leg slightly backwards until there was a mountain in the duvet.

“I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but I have this sudden urge for a cigarette.”

“I wouldn’t give into that craving.”

“Why not: it’s not like tobacco can kill me now.”

“It can’t, but that’s not why I advised you to steer clear of smoking.”

“Why did you then?”

“I get used to saying it to people visiting friends and family who decide to light-up.”

“Can’t they read the ‘no smoking’ signs?”

“Apparently not”

“So, you’ve still got a bit of the doctor in you.”

“No, I’ve got a lot of the doctor in me. It’s probably the same for you in your line of work.”

“Actually, that seems to have run off for now. I’m waiting for it to come back!”

Marcus perused Jade’s response in detail. In dissecting it, a humorous thought of his own materialised in his mind.

“It’s just occurred to me, Jade.”

“What has?”

“I’ve never bothered to find out whether our kind has its own sex manual.”

They both laughed, but Jade was the one who derived the most humour from the statement. Her face screwed up slightly and her eyes watered because she found it funnier than he did. It needed three attempts to quell the sensation. She eased herself out of it by repeating the part of the sentence that was very matter-of-fact.

“Our kind...I wonder if I can get used to me adopting that line, Marcus.”

“You don’t have to.”
Marcus reached beneath the quilt on his side of Catherine’s bed. After a brief tug at something Jade couldn’t see, he brought his hand back out. Between his thumb and forefinger was a used condom.”
“Quick, bung it in the bin” ordered Jade as she wore a grossed-out expression. He flung back the cover and rushed into his friend’s bathroom, still holding it. He wasn’t in there any longer than a quarter of a minute and came charging back in, getting straight into the bed again.
“I don’t see why you needed that, Marcus! I didn’t think the women in the pointy teeth brigade could get knocked up!”
“You’re really going to have to look beyond the myths and pop-culture ideas that allegedly define us, Jade!”
The talk pertaining to female reproduction heralded that seriousness was on its way back, but without any friction to flare up any emotions capable of unravelling this resolution. She sat up in bed and buried her head in the crest of her outstretched arms.
“So what do I do now about this?”

“That’s a question you need to put to Cathy, Jade.”

“I have one for you, Marcus: do you hate what you are?”

“I did – and until I met you, it was tough ignoring them.”

“You’re going to have to teach me!”

A pause occurred in which Jade thought about her job, friends and family. These were the trio of real-life constants that anything beyond the norm could push into the distance.

“I don’t know if you can. Nobody, other than you, has any idea of what’s happened to me!” she said as she raised her head back up.

“Nor can they, Jade” said Marcus stiffly.

This tempted her back into some form of disagreement with Marcus vetoing this course of action. It was short-lived.

“I suppose we’d better get out of this bed – it doesn’t belong to us anyway.”

“Are you in any hurry?”

She wasn’t, but Jade was starting to listen to advice that it was best to listen to what Catherine had to say. Her brain could not offer anything better; it was still trying to adjust to something she’d only imagined about becoming factual to her.

“I need you to go” Catherine said to Marcus when he and Jade came back downstairs.

“No,” said DC Pryce “he stays!”

After a minute spent realising Jade wasn’t going to take no for an answer, Henfield offered up her brand of agreement.

“He can if you listen, Jade.”

“Okay – but you still have to deliver on your promise to give me an answer about that E-mail.”

“It’s obvious you’re not going to leave this matter alone, so I might as well tell you now. The document I wanted Kara to get for me was a copy of Andrew Lister’s re-election manifesto that Frank George had got hold of somehow. She went missing before she could retrieve it.”

“Kara’s just a teenage girl, not a professional snoop to get back a political document” said Jade sternly. “It’s more than likely Frank has abducted her a second time. Whoever did that job for him also murdered her mum and dad!”

“I know exactly who killed them” announced Catherine without a flicker of emotion.

“Well, do you mind sharing? I owe it to Kara to get her back safely and to give her justice.”

Jade was sounding more like a police officer again. The morality in trying to achieve these two aims was dictating her choice of words.

“I can’t help you with that, Jade.”

“Why can’t you?”

“One of the first things you need to know about our kind is that we sense when someone has traded a normal lifespan for an immortal one.”

“So?”

“So, I sensed it two days ago.”

“What are you getting at, Catherine?”

“I’m sorry, but Kara is a vampire now.”

The news was a body-blow. Jade found the worst part of hearing this was that she had no power to stop this. In this haze, she lashed out at Catherine, hitting her square in the face. She was winded by the rapid assault, but recovered at a lightning pace.

“Let me guess,” said Catherine “you’re not sorry in the slightest.”

“I was thinking of Frank when I threw that punch. You were in the way!”

“That’s a human reaction, Jade.”

“What kind did you expect me to have? I’ve known Jade since she was nine!”

Catherine tried to look as if she were unmoved. Inside, it was a different story. She was sympathetic to how Jade had expressed her feelings about this detail.

“Once Frank changed her, as he did with the other girls”

“He changed them all?”

“If you let me finish, once she became like you and I, the outcome for her turned bleak. There is nothing more I can do for Kara.”

“Yes there is, Catherine” stated DC Pryce.

“What?”

“You and I can go to her parents’ house!”

Darkness Dominates - Chapter 6

Somewhere between the dawn and when most radio breakfast shows started, Stewart was brought of the dream he was having by his mobile phone. He had to rub his eyes gently first, so he could see where on his bedside table it was. His right hand retrieved it from under his pillow, however.

“How the hell did it get there?”

The question awoke his wife and she wasn’t happy about it. She turned over to try and drift off again, but DCI Oliver had a loud phone voice and she had to rely on her pillows to muffle his noisiness.

“Yes? Yes, sir, I was asleep when you rang.”

“Who is it?” asked Mrs Oliver.

“The Chief Constable, love”

With that information acquired, she sandwiched her head between the pair of pillows again and closed her eyes. Stewart shuffled up his side of the bed to get to a sitting position that didn’t strain his lower back.

“Sorry, sir, my wife was just talking to me! Go on with what you were saying. Have I watched the local news? No, sir, I haven’t. You want me to turn the TV on right now? Okay, let me go downstairs and I’ll call you back, sir.”

He moved a sufficient portion of his side of the quilt cover across, so his feet didn’t get entangled. Because he’d laid his slippers vertically the night before, he was able to insert his feet into them without needing to look where he was going.

A lorry had stopped in the street to allow a car to back out into the area of the road ahead. The dense mechanical thuds from the ignition revving to keep the engine on penetrated the walls of the living room. The widescreen HD TV had been left on standby all night, so all DCI Oliver had to do was to press that button on the remote. His thumb did that chore. Another news report was on and Stewart thought he’d missed it, but he hadn’t. The next was the one he’d been told to watch out for. After straightening the sheets of paper in front of her, the female news announcer spoke to the camera, reading the words on the teleprompter.

“Uniformed police were called to the grounds of Lister & Sons haulage contractors at twelve minutes to six by a resident living nearby. What they found was the business premises in ruins, the heavy goods vehicles destroyed and the remains of one of the firm’s employees. More details from Veronica Ludlow. Be advised that her report contains footage some viewers may find disturbing.”

Stewart had the pre-broadcast warning, but he kept watching undaunted. Graphic imagery was a part of the job he learned to cope with on a day-to-day basis. He also knew Miss Ludlow was going to be at the scene of the incident before the newscaster had made her presence there public. Her history with DCI Oliver and his colleagues had earned her an unfavourable reputation. He’d mentally documented all the times something horrific was being reported locally, and he did not think it a coincidence her name kept being announced as the reporter there. Stewart and the others saw her as an opportunistic, slightly over-ambitious woman who revelled on landing in the more shocking reports that some of her nicer colleagues weren’t keen to take on, even if they’d been assigned to. He couldn’t prove she got off on this category of news stories, but Veronica had never done anything to warrant the accusation slanderous. DCI Oliver was going on what he sensed about her personality, and at times it made him shudder. His nine seconds of introspection meant he missed the opening sentence of her report from the firm’s location, but he steered himself to pay attention to the rest of it.

“The parade of marked police vehicles, ambulances and fire engines are causing considerable disruption to those driving through the area around Lister & Sons’ main haulage depot” said Miss Ludlow. “Constables and fire crews are trying to hold back people from passing directly by the site of the incident. Our cameras did get a brief view at the scene of what can only be described as a possible explosion.”

On the screen came the footage viewers were warned to expect. It barely triggered any emotion from Stewart. He had seen worse. All there really was to see were a few smears of blood on the ground. He didn’t think it was pleasant to look at if people hadn’t had their breakfasts yet, but he wasn’t forging the opinion it was a nasty as a moment of gruesomeness from a Quentin Tarantino flick.

“The constable I spoke to was only able to confirm that a disturbance at the premises was reported by a member of the public. However, since I’ve been here, the emphasis the emergency services are focussed on primarily is on containment instead of investigation. We aren’t being told either how long the cordon will be here for, but by looking at the amount of debris and alleged structural weaknesses of the neighbouring buildings, the sole assumption I’m able to make is that it this road could be sealed off to pedestrians and motorists for at least five or six days, depending on how much debris can be removed in the next twenty-four hours. As for the human remains, the consensus from the uniform presence there is that a forensic examination of the scene is unlikely to happen until this evening at the earliest. Clearing the site seems to be the uppermost priority in the minds of all the emergency service departments currently at the scene. The firm’s proprietors have yet to arrive here, but given the traffic situation, it is believed any exchange of information between them and those officially dealing with it will be over the phone. Until we something to the contrary, it looks as if this area has been closed off until further notice. Veronica Ludlow in Bolton for BBC North West”

The stand-by button was pressed again. He didn’t want the TV’s noise to impede him hearing his mobile phone getting calls. As he was thinking about it, he got the first one of the day from Angela. Donnie and Graham’s calls came after, and there was not even a minute separating the end of one and the beginning of the next. They all conveyed the same message, but said it in ways that defined their personalities.

“And the 4^th one will be Jade!” he said to himself.

He stood there for at least seven minutes. Yet, his mobile was silent. He was surprised at his disappointment that DC Pryce didn’t jump on her fellow officers’ bandwagon: he thought he would’ve been relieved. Moving himself to the kitchen and making himself a coffee bought him some time not to expect her to call. Another ten minutes of not hearing his ringtone spring back into action set him off speculating whether Jade had actually woken up. Eventually, he went with that conclusion. Keeping hold of his mobile in his left hand acted as a symbolic reminder he promised to call the Chief Constable back after watching the report, and he hadn’t yet made good on that, but he was saved the trouble of doing it. The ringtone sounded again and he took the call there and then.

“Yes, sir, I’ve seen it! You’re stopping by CID headquarters when? Right, sir – I’ll be expecting you.”

One on one office visits signified he was going to be given information that he would be forbidden from sharing with those he regularly issued orders to. He’d almost forgotten to press the ‘end call’ button, and it was apparent that the man he took instructions from might have spent about thirty seconds listening to the receiver tapping against Stewart’s left trouser leg. He put it to his ear again but heard nothing other than the dial tone. His boss had hung up as DCI Oliver promised to be where he said he was going to be. Ditching the expectation that Jade would ring right before he set off for work, he began dressing himself for that car journey.

 

The little finger of Jade’s left hand began to twitch as a rabbit hopped close to its nail. This involuntary motion frightened the bunny and it made several leaps to be gone from an area it found dangerous. The blades of grass were still dew-laden and parts of the hand resting on the green surface were slightly damp. Against the increasing onset of daylight, the wet patches glistened. The coldness of the sensation began to rouse Jade out of her slumber and she rolled onto her back. Her eyelids were trying to open and DC Pryce was burdened for a short while by blurry images which were attempting to come into focus. She said the word “fuck” protractedly while she was yawning. A quick look up to the sky didn’t help the tiredness to go at the speed she wanted it to vanish during. Incomprehensible noises in the distance encircled the spot where she slept. They became clearer as her hearing got the message she was awake and started working fully. This managed to enable the process of waking up to go a fraction faster. The next eight minutes saw her trying to get her arms to propel herself upwards. They felt sore and stiff. She groaned when she grass stains on her hands. A diagonal roll over and getting up on one knee succeeded where her arms hadn’t. She gradually stood up and was considerably alarmed to discover she was at the top of an embankment that looked onto a motorway hard shoulder.

“How drunk did I get last night?”

This was the most common thought her brain could summon. She gazed at the other side of the length of motorway passing the foot of the grassy verge. None of the houses she saw were recognisable. She put her hand up to her forehead, but couldn’t feel any raised temperature. There were no traces of a hangover either.

“I can’t have gotten drunk after dealing with Leon. I...”

She had made no effort to think of him. The name had slipped out naturally.

The horrified look she’d exhibited last night on spying Harris’ dead body returned with a vengeance. Her eyes swept all of the area she could see clearly and it stopped at a sheep a short way away. It was lying on its left hand side and a large pool of blood soaked the grass underneath the dead animal. She got closer, but the smell of intestines exposed to the morning air prompted a puking session. It went on for a few minutes, and she’d expelled the well-digested remnants of the steak she’d eaten last night. Still, there was no headache or migraine forcing its way into her head. She stood up again and began the long walk back to civilisation.

It was an elaborate journey because she had to ask a good number of people the best way back to the centre of Bolton. Two hours of continuous walking paid off and she found a long street on the outskirts that led her to a section of the high street she knew well. Her bleariness was still a persistent physical visitation and it falsely made her look she was feeling the morning effects of exceeding her alcohol intake. A constable on her way back to the scene of devastation at Lister & Sons, having been temporarily called into action to sort out a mild public order offence, mistook it for that too.

“Been on the lam, love” she asked Jade, thinking she was dealing with an intoxicated female.

“No, I was at the....doesn’t matter!”

“What’s your name and what’s with the strip-o-gram outfit?”

“Two questions in one sentence...cute!”

The constable frowned.

“I’m going to get a bag for you to blow into.”

“No wait, constable, don’t breathalyse me!”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because of this” said Jade, holding her wallet open to show the WPC her CID rank.

“God, DC Pryce! I had no idea it was you – I’ve been busy with World War Three breaking out at Lister’s lorry place!”

“That’s okay, I had a rough night and....sorry, did you say World War Three breaking out at Lister & Sons?”

“Yes, looks like a bomb’s gone off there! Shall I tell DCI Oliver you’re here?”

“Yes...no, not yet! Tell him to expect me at the site soon. I’m going home to change out this fucking stupid costume, and then have a shower. No wonder you thought I was a stripper!”

“Why don’t I drive you there, Jade? Sorry, I’m not supposed to use the first names of my superiors! It’s a hard habit to get out of! I’m still on a learning curve, pretty much.”

“You can take me in the patrol car, just so long as you don’t use the phrase ‘learning curve’ again.”

Technically, Jade’s working day had started, so the WPC was free to let Pryce sit in the front passenger seat.

“By the way, I didn’t catch your name!”

“WPC Lenora Hardcastle.”

“I remember you now”

“I was doing my job”

“Don’t put yourself down, Lenora! What you did makes you a model constable in my book!”

“You’re the first person who’s put it like that.”

“Well, I hope I’m not the last!”

“Thanks for saying that, but I do believe I was doing my job. I’m not looking for an award. All I need to know is that I exposed a paedophile who thought he could manipulate his girlfriend into believing her teenage daughter was a liar! He’s behind bars now and on the se– that’s good enough for me!”

“Award recipient or not: I think CID could do with someone like you.”

“Maybe when DCI Oliver retires, I’ll think about it. I’m only twenty anyhow!”

“That never stopped me.”

“That’s true.”

Lenora parked outside Jade’s house but kept the engine running.

“You don’t need to do that”

“I don’t mind – I nearly arrested you for being drunk.”

“I would’ve done the same, Lenora. If you really want to wait for me, you’d better switch off your engine. I’m going to be at least three quarters of an hour.”

The boisterous purr of the motor ended abruptly as WPC Hardcastle moved the key anti-clockwise. DC Pryce was keeping both her eyes squarely on her front door. Lenora watched her go in and then reached over to the back seat to collect a magazine she’d bought yesterday.

Jade removed the fake WPC outfit in stages as she walked upstairs, savouring the thought of a shower. Cleansing herself was the sole thought she entertained on passing through the main door to her home. She was wearing nothing but her bra and panties when she reached the hallway on the first floor. They too were cast off and they floated down to the downstairs corridor from where she had dropped them. The door to the shower room was shut and rushing water was the next noise to come from the higher part of the house.

She was in the midst of letting the hot water coming through the nozzles. Sharply, Pryce’s memories of the night she chased after Harris exploded throughout her mind. The visions were compartmentalised, but free of distorted images. They fostered the disorientating sensation of her subconscious being thrust towards each recollection as if she were diving into it from a non-existent springboard. The first to have that feeling was the moment her brain had tried to rub out: Marcus exposing the one secret he had spent numerous generations hiding. The leap towards it was the scariest. Clouds of blood beneath water spread upwards rather than down. A red filter turned her vision scarlet and her eyes closed. She dropped to a crouching position in the shower and then she was haunted by a memory that wasn’t even hers. She was now locked into the mind of Kara, but she didn’t know this where her train of thought had transported her to. Jade saw her and the five other missing girls form their deadly circle around Steve. He was a stranger to her, though, and his presence in this tortuous daydream was an anomaly. The effect water had on blood came again and the moon rose up and everything went crimson again. She then felt as if she was flying over to the satellite. When the moon was the size of the Earth, Kara’s eyes opened where the largest of its craters was, and Jade felt herself tumbling down through the clouds. When they parted, she saw herself drain Leon of all the blood from his body. Jade’s eyes opened at the second prior to her landing on the pavement beside Harris. Her body reacted by falsely falling onto her knees, despite her being in that position anyway. She turned the shower off and briskly stepped from within. Facing the mirror, Jade, nude from head to toe, said through gritted teeth “I can’t be one...I can’t! They don’t fucking exist!” There was a moment of calm silence, but a replay of her killing the man who had, to all intents and purposes, killed her brought out a streak of rage. The knuckles on both her hands careered into the mirror, creating a fractured image of her reflection. A shard that had broken away had been embedded in one of the gaps between her fingers. She pulled it out and watched silently as the wound evaporated in a matter of seconds.

Thinking about the impossible way her hand healed was dominating the ordinary act of changing into clean clothes. It led to her choosing a combo of dark red coloured clothes: a thin cotton jacket, trousers that were reasonably snug and open topped high heel shoes were what her brain drove her to wear. She had a different one in mind, but her macabre vision gained the mental victory over her free will.

Breakfast at the dining table built for three people offered her no respite from the plague of malevolent images. All the edges of her mind possessed feint echoes of them. She was late in eating it: the time on the kitchen clock was 10:54.

“Shit! Fuck!” she bellowed. “Lenora’s waiting for me!”

The annoyance she was aiming at herself for keeping WPC Harcastle hanging around omitted to take account of the incredible and bizarre circumstances she was trying hard to comprehend. She wanted to let real life step back in and vanquish anything as weird as what she was experiencing this instant. Jade rushed out of her house and slammed the door. She hadn’t changed out of the choice of attire that was the outcome of her unfathomable turmoil. When she got in beside Lenora again, the female constable enquired “Why are you all in red?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it suits my mood.”

However like nonsense it sounded, it was readily accepted by Lenora as a worthwhile explanation. She didn’t really challenge authority unless there was a solid moral argument for overstepping her professional boundaries.

“Are you in a bad mood, DC Pryce?”

“I’ll let you know, Hardcastle.”

By using the WPC’s surname, Jade had reverted to a less than happy outlook. She seldom used Christian names if something had caused to be pissed off. Her whole life had been overturned by discovering something she denied as existing did. This is turn meant she couldn’t speak of it at all, not without the outcome where she was sectioned under the mental health act. She was fighting against the side of her that wanted to select honesty all the way to Lister & Sons’ haulage yard – or what was left of it. Jade won a victory of sorts: she had let the reality of her dilemma sink in. The truth burning to be released wouldn’t be taken like that by anyone listening, save for one. She didn’t want to call Marcus, but her vision put him smack bang in the middle of her situation. About two blocks away from the street the emergency services sealed off from the public, Jade made the call that she was inwardly resisting making. He asked how she was before she could say her piece.

“How do you think I am? I’m coming over to Royal Bolton in an hour – you’ve made it absolutely necessary for us to talk!”

She hung up. Pryce had deliberately generalised the comment. She wished it to sound to Lenora that it was concerning the bust-up she’d had with him last night. The WPC took the bait and replied “Men always ask stupid questions when you’re trying to build bridges with them. My boyfriend does it every time! We’re the ultimate in on-off relationships, I can tell you!”

“What’s his name?”

“Steve. We’re off again, though.”

“What did he do?”

“Break his promise to ring me last night.”

“My advice to you would be...actually, ignore it! It’s daft issuing suggestions when I’m this unsure about my own romantic future.”

The only vehicles in the stretch of street Lenora parked at were like the one she was behind the wheel of. Jade didn’t see a single one that wasn’t sporting the word ‘police’ on the bonnet. DC Matthews joined Pryce as she and Lenora stepped onto the kerb.

“Are you ready to see a mini-Armageddon in Bolton, Jade?” he said.

“Matthews, don’t make it sound like a movie you’ve seen for the first time!” snapped DCI Oliver.

“Sorry sir.”

“Make yourself useful instead! Go and see if the CCTV around here succeeded in catching footage that might fill in the blanks about what happened at this place last night.”

“Yes sir.”

Donnie crossed the road and started walking up the street, one building at a time, to see if any of the exteriors of their upper floors had that kind of technology attached to those walls.

“Morning, DC Pryce – just about”

Stewart had gotten his dig about punctuality in early. What was preying on his mind now were the odd aspects of the structural damage inflicted upon the administration department.

“Can I take a closer look at the wreckage, sir?”

“Yeah, but be careful. The fire chief doesn’t think the remains of the structure are safe to be within at least one and a half feet of.”

She pocketed the advice relating to personal safety and went through the space that was presently without its’ security-conscious entrance. Three consecutive sniffs made her afraid she was about to have the distraction involving blood’s odour bother her once more, but it wasn’t a pungent smell. It was sweeter than that.

“Perfume” said Jade.

“I wondered what was going up my nose” said DI Nicholson. “Reminds me of what I bought my sister last Christmas. Don’t know what it’s doing here, though! It isn’t yours, is it?”

“No, I use a different-smelling perfume to the one wafting around, Graham.”

The sea of bricks and splintered concrete had gaps and Jade saw chunks of metal and canvas coverings – some with blood around their edges – making themselves visible through them. In a south-westerly direction to where she was surveying the scale of the damage, Jade spotted an intact portion of a wall measuring four foot, three inches tall. It was serrated and flakes of cement dust were drifting up into the air.

“It’s not the only one” said Angela.

“Have you just got here?”

“No, I’ve been here for nearly two-and-a-half hours, Jade. The reason you didn’t see me was because I was talking to Councillor Lister’s secretary – Anya Guildford.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Nothing – there wasn’t anything she could say! She heard about it like the rest of us.”

“Looks like an unexploded bomb went off here” Jade suggested, in the light of no other explanation seeming to be available.

“Very much doubt it, Jade.”

“Why?”

“Nobody living within a mile of here heard a blast.”

Korrell’s logic scared Jade. It opened up a fresh inconsistency in the chain of facts believed to be indisputable.

“They must’ve done” argued DC Pryce.

“Trust me Jade – they so didn’t hear an explosion!”

Fresh cracks were increasing in visibility along less than half of a ceiling attached to a left-hand wall. The strain placed upon that shattered structure was producing its own eerie noise.

“I think it’s about to give way” said DS Korrell.

“What are we waiting for” said Graham “We’d better move back into the street!”

The three officers who had taken the calculated risk to enter the yard ran out in single file. Six more cracks on the ruined ceiling set its demise in motion. The external impression of the roof going first was wrong. It was the wall that collapsed first, but it didn’t fall directly over: where the bottom came loose, part of the rougher edges caught the jagged line of the wall’s interior and it did bizarrely did six somersaults. The whole thing then crashed into the wall by the right-hand entrance. It descended onto the street rapidly. Some of the crowd rushed back and several women screamed as they thought they saw DC Pryce vanish under it. A handful of constables, including Lenora, all pointed at Jade. Korrell and Nicholson had pulled her away on the eve of the second collapse.

“Fuck – that was close!” said Angela breathlessly.

In a side-alley cafe, over an hour later, Jade was being treated to a strong coffee by DCI Oliver. He felt bad about not vetoing her entering the yard and was giving her compensation in the form of a hot beverage.

“You had a lucky escape” he said.

“It’s not your fault, sir” replied Jade. “Blame gravity – it’s easier.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Pryce.”

“What caused this to happen? Angela as good as told me that there was no blast.”

“Sabotage” began DCI Oliver “of which I’ve never seen the like of. It must’ve taken two bulldozers, three wrecking ball vehicles and over thirty metal cutting saws to do what was done here!”

Stewart’s lack of sensible theories was absolute. The combined racket of all these engines in use together had to have been heard, and there was no way for him to understand why these sounds fell on deaf ears. Donnie returned from his sweep for CCTV devices over the road, and into the cafe, but with no good news to report to his boss.

“Christ, Angela just told me what happened” said Donnie. “Are you hurt, Jade?”

“I’m fine, Donnie – honestly.”

“Did you find any closed-circuit cameras?”

“There was only one, sir, but it had been vandalised – last night, I’d guess.”

“Get the forensic team to check it for prints. They need something to keep them busy until the site is declared safe.”

“I’ll give them a bell now, sir” said Matthews and he left the cafe.

Jade took a few more sips of her coffee prior to asking “Is it alright if I take care of some private, non-police work, business, sir?”

“Something has obviously pulled you through the emotion wringer before you were almost crushed by a toppling wall.”

“Quite a few things actually, sir” she stated mournfully.

“I knew something was up when you were late to work yesterday morning. Do you want to talk about it?”

She moved her cup clockwise.

“I guess you don’t.”

“Sorry, sir, but I’d prefer to have some distance between my personal life and the one I have in CID.”

“I know this is going to make the Chief Constable think I’ve gone soft, but I think you should take a few days off. To be honest, I think your head’s all over the place. Take that red business manager gear – that’s not your usual style.”

DC Pryce knew how right he was. He had demonstrated being wise to when she moved outside her most common traits.

“You’re spot on, sir: the clothes I’ve got on are to do with where my head’s at right this moment.”

Donnie re-entered.

“Sorry to drag you out of this cafe, but the Chief Constable is here, and some of the fire crew have found something you want to take a look at!”

Stewart marvelled at Matthews saying all that in one breath. He didn’t know that many people who could control their breathing to that degree.

“Are you going to be okay while I see what I’m wanted for by my superior and the others?

“I’ll be fine, sir. Let me give you a ring tomorrow.”

“Just call me to let me know when you’re coming back to work.”

Jade nodded a ‘yes’ and carried on trying to drink her coffee.  He departed and called to Donnie that he wanted him to get in touch with Lister again. Five more mouthfuls were downed and three more minutes of being seated passed before she weighed up whether or not she should renege on her effort to talk with Marcus. She should have set off for his house over forty minutes ago, but the impetus was slipping away.

“Fuck it! If I’m late turning up at his house, he’ll have to like it or lump it!”

With her two hands, she moved the chair back from under the table, so she could stand up on the first try. She only reached the next table down from hers. Meeting her halfway was Catherine. Two men in bank manager suits and ties were queued up behind her. They were stood in a manner that blocked any attempt Jade might have to get past them.

“I’m going to see Marcus, Cathy – not you! Do me a favour and get out of my fucking way!”

Catherine kept her face immovable for a moment. Responding to such a fiercely-worded command was as bad as issuing it.

“Did you not hear me, Cathy?”

“Loud and clear, but I’m not going to get out of your fucking way.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Take you to where I work and to make you understand what you are.”

DC Pryce missed the disguised meaning in the dual intentions Catherine had listed.

“I know what I am! What makes you think I’m going to head there with you?”

“Because I am going to answer the question I refused to a couple of days ago.”

Jade considered the incentive for a moment. It sounded too good to be true, but she did not have a satisfactory motive to dismiss her offer as hollow.

“When we get there, I’ll give you thirty minutes of my time, but after that I’m seeing Marcus. That’s the bargain – take it or leave it!”

“My car’s waiting outside.”

In not offering any verbal agreement, Catherine had said yes to Jade’s terms. DC Pryce got up and let Ms Henfield’s pair of male associates escort her out of the cafe.