The Colour of Death (15 page)

Now, as she tried to sleep, her mind kept replaying the earlier events of the day:  listening to Fox’s aunt explaining archaeosonics; discussing her synaesthesic ‘gift’ with Fox; and returning to the burnt house where she had lost her memory and identity.  She was beginning to accept what Fox called her death-echo synaesthesia but still couldn’t understand
why
she had it and — given the remarkable nature of this ‘gift’ — why no one from her old life had come forward to claim her.

Who had she once been?  Where had she come from?  These questions, which had once unnerved her, now excited her.  She was confident that with Fox’s help she would eventually discover the answers.  Before she eventually fell asleep, her last conscious thought was of seeing the psychiatrist the next morning.  It made her smile.

As she descended into REM, the deep sleep when dreams come, the smile faded from her face and the anxiety returned, along with the nightmares that had plagued her unconscious since she could remember.  This time, however, the recurring nightmares felt more real and immediate:  she was running from her shadowy pursuer, through the empty rooms of a deserted hotel, occupied only by the ghosts of the dead.  Outside, horses galloped in crazed circles while a large all-seeing eye looked down on her every move.  As her pursuer got ever closer, she could hear his breathing and smell his scent in her nostrils.  Still asleep she shook her head, as if to purge the smell, but it only grew stronger, reaching deep into the primitive, reptilian part of her brain, invoking a terror so primal it woke her.

It took seconds for her to focus and grow accustomed to the gloom.  The first thing she became aware of was the open window and the breeze blowing the curtains into the room.  Then she noticed a large figure standing over the bed, silhouetted in the moonlight, watching her.  As her panic surged she mentally recited Fox’s mantra: 
observe your visions but remain emotionally detached; what isn’t there can’t hurt you; let your experiences flow past you
.  Gradually her breathing steadied.

Then the apparition leaned toward her.  He was wearing a broad-rimmed hat that covered his face.  Struggling to remain calm, she blinked hard and squinted into the dark.  This didn’t feel like her other experiences of death-echo synaesthesia.  The silhouette bent closer and a deep growling voice whispered in her ear, “I know who you are.  I will save you from the demon.”  A chill ran down her spine.  No death echo had ever addressed her before.  The apparition moved nearer and she saw the glint of a hypodermic needle, and a large knife in the man’s belt.

She opened her mouth to scream but a huge hand clamped over her face.  “Quiet,” the figure hissed, moving the hypodermic so close she could see droplets on the needle tip.  Suddenly, she felt the needle pierce the skin of her arm and she twisted her body away, slipping off the side of the bed, escaping his grip.

She could already feel the effects of whatever he had injected into her.  Her body was no longer hers:  her limbs and vocal cords no longer obeyed her commands.  She tried screaming for help but only a mewing sound came from her lips.  When she tried to crawl to the chair under the door she barely moved.  Still conscious, she saw the intruder wedge a chair under the door handle, jamming it shut, then he bent and swung her over his shoulder as easily as if she were a doll.  Unable to scream or struggle, she felt as if she was outside her body, looking down on her inert self — a silent, helpless witness to her own abduction.  He carried her to the open window where she could feel the cool breeze and see the moon in the star-filled night sky.  The beauty of the scene made her predicament seem even more surreal. Who was he?  Why was he here?  What did he want with her?  She heard banging and her name being called.  There was a crash of rending wood.  Someone was kicking at the jammed door. 
Thank God
.  She didn’t want to die.  Not before she had at least discovered her real name.

The intruder hesitated and reached for his knife.  Suddenly, the door broke open.  A figure rushed in and struck her abductor with such force that he dropped her to the floor.  The fall pushed the air from her lungs, making her gasp for breath.  The intruder quickly regained his poise and lunged with his knife.  Rotating his body with balletic grace, her rescuer avoided the blow before unleashing a kick that slammed her abductor against the window.  For a moment  the two figures squared off against each other and all she could hear was the sound of their labored breathing.  Then the intruder snorted with disgust, exited the window and was gone.

Only when her savior shouted at an orderly to call the police and bent down to check her injuries did she realize it was Nathan Fox.  When he discovered she couldn’t move or speak he gently picked her up off the floor and laid her on the bed.  “You’re safe now,” he said.  “I’m pretty sure he injected you with ketamine.  The effects should wear off soon.”

The next hour was a blur of doctors, nurses and police.  As soon as the police arrived to examine the scene she was moved to another room.  Professor Fullelove and Detective Karl Jordache, the cop she remembered from the night of the fire, both came to check on her.  Fullelove told her that fortunately her attacker had managed to inject only a small amount of ketamine.  Jordache reassured her that the man would be found and a twenty-four hour watch put on her room.  Despite all the assurances, however, she only felt safe again when the feeling returned to her arms and she could embrace Fox.  The surprising hardness of his body and strength of his arms comforted her more than any words.  Slowly he disengaged, laid her back on the bed and gave her a glass of water.  Her parched mouth felt like she had been sucking cotton wool.  She explained to the police everything that had happened, including what the intruder had said to her.

“Can you remember the
exact
words he used?” said Jordache.

“Yes.  ‘I know who you are.  I will save you from the demon’.”

“You must have got a good look at him, Nathan.  You fought him,” said Jordache.

“Not really.  It was too dark, the moon was behind him and his hat obscured his face.”  He rubbed his leg.  “He’s goddamned big, though, and as strong as an ox.  I detected a faint smell.”

“So did I,” Jane Doe said.

Jordache turned to her.  “What sort of smell?”

“Like dead flesh.”

“What about his face, Jane?  Did
you
see what he looked like?”

“I only got a glimpse.  I couldn’t give you much detail.”

“Did you recognize him from anywhere?”

Something about the way Jordache and Fox were studying her made her pause.  She thought of the shadowy pursuer in her nightmares and shivered.  “You’re looking at me like I should have done.  Why?”

Fox and Jordache exchanged a glance, then the detective handed Fox a thin brown envelope.  “Not now, Karl,” Fox said.  “It can wait till the morning.  She’s still my patient and she should get some rest.”

“What can wait till morning?” she said.  Fox frowned.  “Tell me,” she insisted.  “What’s going on?”

“Tell her,” said Jordache.  She heard someone calling the detective.  “I’ll be outside if you need me.”

Fox waited for Jordache to leave then sat by her bed.  “It’s about the intruder…”

The attack had so shaken her that she felt a strange relief when he told her about the three murders and their connection to her.  At least it explained why the man had singled her out.  Sort of.  “You sure it’s the same man?” she asked, when Fox had finished.

“He spoke about ‘saving you from the demon’, which is similar language to that used in messages at the crime scenes.  The ketamine he injected you with is a signature of two of the killings.  From the little I saw and felt, he was big enough to fit a vague description the police got from a storekeeper on the fringes of Old Town.  And his smell fits some of the witness statements.  So, yes, I’d say it was the same man.”

“He stapled
my
newspaper photograph to the faces of his victims?”

“Yes.”

“He said he knows who I am.  You think he really knows me?  Knows who I was?”

Fox shrugged.  “Possibly, but it’s just as likely he became fixated on your avenging angel persona.  Frankly, the way he attacked you points to him being delusional.  So, my guess is he doesn’t really know you at all.  But I could be wrong.”

“The police have any idea who he is?”

“Like I said, they have a vague description, but nothing concrete yet.”  He paused.  “The police are worried he’ll kill again and are desperate for leads.  I’ve explained your amnesia to them but Jordache wants to interview you about the homicides, to see if it triggers anything.  He believes you might be the key to finding this man, especially after what just happened.  I said I’d talk you through the homicides.  You OK with that?”

“Yes.”  She wanted to find the killer as much as the police did, especially as he might be the only link to her past.

“Jordache gave me pictures of the victims and some crime scene photos to show you to see if anything registers.”  Fox pulled a sheaf of photographs from the brown envelope and laid them on the table:  the victims face up;  the crime scene pictures face down.

“I don’t recognize any of the victims.”

He nodded like he didn’t expect anything else.  “Look at the crime scene pictures.  But be warned.  They’re not pretty.”

She turned the pictures over and flicked through them.  The photographs were graphic but after her death-echo synaesthesia these mute, static, odorless images of bloody mutilated corpses held no fears.  Even the severed head didn’t faze her, although it troubled her to see her photograph stapled to the victims’ faces.  She coolly studied each picture and read the marker pen messages, noticing the similarity to the language used by the intruder, but she felt no connection to what she was seeing.  “I’m sorry.  These pictures mean nothing to me.”

“I didn’t think they would,” Fox said quietly.  He paused and looked at her.  “There is another way you could find out more about the homicides and the killer.”

She understood immediately.  “I’d have to visit the actual crime scenes.  But it must be just you and me.  No one else, not even the police, must know about my…”

“Your gift?”

“No one.  You must never tell
anyone
.”  She trusted Fox but there could be no misunderstanding about this.  “If you do decide to tell someone, even for the most noble medical reason, then I’ll deny it.  And without my testimony no one will believe you.”

He nodded slowly.  “No one, not even Jordache, will come inside when we walk the crime scenes.”

She glanced back at the graphic photographs and felt suddenly nauseous.  “What about the bodies?  The head and…”

“Don’t worry.  They’ll all have been removed.”

She made a decision, excitement overruling fear.  “Let’s do it.”

Chapter 22

They arrived at the first crime scene a little after nine o’clock the next morning.

When Fox had told Jordache he wanted to walk the crime scenes with Jane Doe, the detective had protested, “I meant show her the photographs of the victims and the message, Nathan.  Not walk the goddamned crime scene.  There’s nothing there except blood and shit.”

“The place might be relevant and it gives context to the photographs and messages.  You’re the one who insisted on jogging Jane Doe’s memory, Karl, not me.  If you think she knows the killer or the victims then we either do this properly or we don’t do it at all.”

“Then why can’t I walk the scene with you?”

“Because you’ll cramp her style and you agreed to let me handle this my way, without asking questions.”

Jordache and his team waited outside while Fox and Jane Doe entered the derelict apartment block alone.  Fox watched his patient constantly, still shocked by last night’s intrusion into her room at Tranquil Waters, determined to extricate her from the scene if it proved too much.  This promised to be Jane Doe’s toughest test.  Even Fox could sense a disturbing atmosphere here.  Leading her silently past the elevator and into the stairwell, the smell of urine, viscera and blood was stronger than he remembered.  The body had been removed but a strip of white tape outlined where it had lain.  “You OK, Jane?”  She nodded silently, seemingly overwhelmed by her surroundings.  “Want me to brief you on what the police think happened?”

“No.  Let me see it for myself.”  Looking pale but focused, she stepped into the area where the body had lain.  She leaned forward and when she touched the wall she exhaled loudly, as if winded by the impact of what she was experiencing.

“What is it?”  He stepped closer but she raised a hand and waved him back.

“Later,” she said, not looking at him.  “I’ll tell you later.”  For a long while she stayed there, bent almost double, then she slowly straightened and began ascending the stairs.  She went to the top of the first flight and turned to him.  “You sure the victim was a man?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised.  Jane Doe had seen the crime scene pictures.  She knew that all the victims were men.  “The killer dressed him in female underwear but the victim was a man.”

She stared intently down the stairs for a long while, seeing something he couldn’t, then shook her head in confusion.  “It doesn’t make sense,” she said to herself, stepping back and closing her eyes.  When she opened them again she gasped.  “Ohh,” she said, experiencing a sudden epiphany.  She scampered quickly down the stairs, as if following a falling object, and crouched over the taped outline of where the corpse had lain.  As she stared down she began nodding to herself.  The fear had gone from her face, replaced with intense concentration.  “That’s strange.”

“What?”

“I need to see the next crime scene.  Can we go there now?”

“You got anything yet, Nathan?” Jordache hissed as they arrived at the deserted warehouse where the second victim had been dispatched.

Fox was as much in the dark as the detective.  “Not yet,” he said, lifting up the crime scene tape for Jane Doe to pass.  “Not yet.”  Fox no longer led but followed her to the crime scene.  Her newfound confidence impressed but also unnerved him.  When they were alone in the warehouse she walked straight to the tape marking where the body had lain, dropped to her knees and pressed her palm against the floor — not tentatively but firmly,
expertly
.  Now the fear was under control she seemed to be mastering her gift.  It occurred to Fox then that she was the perfect crime scene investigator.  Trained CSIs had to study the evidence to extrapolate what had happened but she could viscerally relive the crime from the victim’s point of view — again and again.  She stood up abruptly and frowned.  Looking anxious but in command of her feelings, she stared down at the tape and kept shaking her head.  “Why do that?  Why?”