The Night of the Mosquito (12 page)

Chapter 26

St Michael’s Church. Midday.

The colours streaking the sky had made Timothy wary of going out. Concerned, he dressed in Father Raymond’s hooded black habit, the one that the priest had always reserved for Easter weekend, to mark the three days that were so revered in the Christian calendar. Already warm, he considered removing his boiler-suit undergarment, but that meant he’d have no pocket in which to carry his sister’s Bible. Wearing the priest’s garments, Timothy was sure he had God more on his side. Otherwise, he reasoned, why did the holy men wear them?

It was a question he had scribbled on his pad and passed to Father Raymond one night. The priest put his whiskey down and squinted at the words in the dim light. ‘What the devil does this say?’

Timothy shrugged, held his left hand out and stared at it while wiggling two fingers of his right over the top of his palm.

‘I have fucking read it, Timothy; your punctuating is crap. Whoever taught you to write was useless.’

Timothy snatched his notebook from the startled priest and stormed out.

Later, Father Raymond knocked at his room. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, speaking close to the wood. ‘Can I come in?’ A moment later a note appeared under the door.

‘No!’

The priest shook his head. Walking away, he murmured. ‘Nothing wrong with the punctuating there, boy.’

Timothy barely remembered the first few days spent with Megan, the woman who’d looked after him for ten years, but he did recall how she’d said to him, ‘You can’t talk, I accept that. I’ll bet you can’t write either. Well, I’m going to teach you. You know what writing is?’

He’d nodded.

She’d shoved a pencil and a piece of paper at him. ‘Write your name down for me.’

He still sometimes stuck his tongue out when he wrote, and he had done so that day, almost chewing it off as if it would help control his shaking hand. Finally, he succeeded.
Timothy.

Megan read it out loud. ‘Tim-o-tee . . . see this?’ She pointed to her nose and wrote a single word on a scrap of paper. ‘Copy that down.’

Timothy painstakingly copied what she’d written.
Nose.

Little by little, Megan taught him to write. Schooled him on everything she knew about life – why people often behaved the way they did, the order of things, and the beauty of nature. ‘And there’s symbolism to be seen everywhere if only you have an eye for it. You’ll learn, as you grow older, that what goes on in the heavens affects us down here. As above, so below, Timo.’ She smiled at his confusion. ‘One day you’ll understand.’

Over the years, what she’d taught him blended with Father Raymond’s warped and drink-fuelled philosophical ramblings.

After Father Raymond had died, Timothy wore the Easter robes on his own special occasions. Deep in thought, he picked lint from the front of the gown. He was closer to God than the old drunk had ever been.

‘It’s a question of faith,’ the priest had told him during another lecture.

It was why he carried the Bible close to his heart.

Timothy walked out into the churchyard and took a detour past his family’s grave. He bent to pluck a blade of grass, the broadest stem he could find, and then made his way down through the woods towards the railway track.

Chapter 27

Hilltop Cottage. 12:07 p.m.

Anderson floated weightlessly in a world he’d never been to before. Disoriented, he spread his arms and legs like a spaceman tumbling through the infinity of space, the Earth disappearing below him, becoming no more than a dot.

‘Not all behaviour is learned,’ he heard Ryan say.

Anderson searched for the source of the voice. It was close. ‘Where are you?’

‘There’s always a pattern if you know how to look.’

The book.
Problem Child
. Anderson recalled reading the words. Or did he?

‘I’m talking about genetic blueprints,’ Ryan said.

That wasn’t in the book.
The blackness of space and the stars all around him vanished, and he found himself sitting opposite Ryan, watching the light play along the length of the polished silver pencil the elderly psychiatrist held between the thumbs and forefingers of his hands. Anderson blinked.

‘You’re not with me, are you, Anderson? I’m talking about traits passed between identical twins, separated at birth, by accident or design, perhaps.’

‘But Ryan, who would do that?’

‘Twins, who despite being separated for twenty years, often discover once reunited that they share exactly the same traits.’

‘Your point, Ryan?’

‘It would seem our lives are mapped out for us from the start.’

Anderson felt as if he were stretched out at the limits of an elastic band. He could float no further. He experienced a brief moment suspended in time and then he was snatched back, hurtling through blackness, the Earth growing bigger and brighter. He smashed through the atmosphere, closer and closer, scattered houses and open fields, forest. He braced himself. He had to wake up. If he didn’t, it would mean he had died.

His olfactory senses came alive. Dampness. The sweet, pungent odour of rotting leaves. Confused, Anderson struggled to remember where he was. The dream had turned into a nightmare. He woke, breathless and half-blinded by pain.
This can’t go on.

Insight settled on him. He knew what it was. Self-diagnosis to the nth degree. He knew beyond doubt. He felt it. Thousands of tiny eggs coursed through his bloodstream, log-jamming, clogging in the bends and bottlenecks of his veins. Soon they would be hatching.

Adrenaline surged.
Get to a doctor
.

But he couldn’t rouse himself.

Chapter 28

Signal House, Churchend. 12:27 p.m.

Wolfe lumbered along the railway track, gauging the length of his step to fall on the evenly spaced sleepers. It had taken a few minutes to get accustomed to walking with shorter strides, but now that he was used to it, he had no need to watch where he placed his feet.
Where are the trains?
Still no sign of anyone. Apart from the people in the church, he hadn’t seen a soul, hadn’t heard any vehicles. Instinct told him it had something to do with the lights in the skies. They shimmered in ways he’d never seen before. Birds perched in the trees on either side of the track, shuffling nervously as he approached, seeming to be as wary of him as they were the shape-shifting lightshow playing out above them.

Distracted, he stumbled, cursing as one of his feet fell short and crunched heavy and hard, down onto the gravel bed of the track. Shockwaves sped through his aching body.

His focus shifted to watching the position of the sleepers. Counting with each step, he resumed his cadence. The rhythm lulled him. He lost all sense of time and his thoughts drifted back to his early interviews with his psychiatrist, Dr Kotlas.

‘I have these recurring dreams, and in them, I’m seeing through the eyes of a killer.’ Wolfe grinned at the irony. ‘I know what you’re thinking, doc, I
am
a killer, but this is someone else. And I think I know who it is.’

Kotlas stared. The patient, restrained in a straitjacket and flanked by guards, appeared sincere. The lengthy pause that had developed didn’t encourage him to speak further. Wolfe, knowing silence was one of the tools the doctor used, kept a victorious grin locked deep inside.

Kotlas rolled his hand, gesturing for him to continue.

‘I think it’s Jack the Ripper,’ he said. ‘I know you’ll think I’m crazier than you did before, but I’ve a psychic connection with him.’

The psychiatrist leaned forwards. Placing his elbows on the desk, he steepled his hands and rested his chin on his thumbs. ‘Because you dream about him?’

‘No, it’s more than that. I feel it, here.’ His arms jiggled beneath the heavy canvas. ‘In my guts.’

‘Tell me, what it is you think you see through this killer’s eyes?’

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘I’m just asking questions,’ Kotlas said. ‘Believing or not isn’t relevant at this point. All right, let’s try this. What do you think the dreams mean?’

Wolfe shrugged. ‘I’m seeing through the eyes of the Ripper. I’ve told you all this before. The missing body parts. What do you think he did with them?’

The psychiatrist shook his head. ‘No idea. Tell me.’

‘He ate them, that’s what he did. I knew he was related to me somehow – why do you think we share the same tastes? I told my last quack all this, but no one takes me seriously.’

The cables overhead hummed as the wind rose, drawing Wolfe back to the present. He glanced up. The sky had become predominantly pink, the atmosphere eerie. An unearthly screech cut across the tracks. It reminded him of how, when he was a child, he’d blown breath across a piece of grass held between his upright thumbs, his hands cupped to amplify the noise. Turning in the direction the sound had come from, he caught a glimpse of some indefinable shape, large and dark, moving among the shadows of the trees.

‘You don’t think making that stupid racket scares me, do you? Or is it you want to play games with me?’ he shouted. ‘Come on then, come over here.’ Greeted with silence, and seeing no further movement, he dismissed what he’d seen as a trick of the light. The shriek? Just the wind. He strode on.

On the left-hand side of the track, two hundred yards ahead, a signal box. Would there be anyone in it? Would they have seen him? Wolfe cut down the steep bank, aiming to approach on the blindside. His lips were dry; he licked them. Maybe he could get something to drink from there.

The way ahead blocked by a level crossing, Wolfe clambered up the bank and crossed the railway lines.

There was no sign of life in the first-floor windows of the half-timbered building. Arranged under a slate roof, the upstairs was supported on a solid brickwork base, designed, he imagined, to elevate the structure for good visibility both ways down the track. He followed the footpath through a white gate, climbed a short flight of stairs, and tried the door. Locked. About to stove it in, someone yelled from inside, ‘Who’s there?’

‘Couldn’t get a train. I’ve walked up from the last station miles back,’ Wolfe said, directing his voice at the door. ‘I wondered if I could have a glass of water. Find out what’s going on.’

‘There’s no trains. Power failure, I think,’ a man shouted from inside the signal house. ‘I can’t let you in. Regulations. Sorry.’

Wolfe bent to look through the fish-eye lens of the door viewer. An eye stared back.

‘Don’t you trust me? Come on,’ he pleaded. ‘All I want is some water and somewhere to rest.’

‘Okay, go around the trackside. I’ll drop you a bottle out of the window, and then you can go. You can’t rest here.’

‘Just open the door.’ Wolfe knocked on it gently. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

‘Scared? I’m seventeen stone. Why would I be?’ the signalman said. ‘Look, mate, I’ve been up all night, my shift is over, but I can’t leave because the day-man hasn’t shown up. There’s no power. There’s no phone or radio. In other words, I don’t know what’s happening.’

‘Got anything I can eat in there?’ Wolfe said, grinning. ‘I’ll bet you have.’

‘No, I haven’t. Now I told you, I’ll drop a bottle of water down to you. Take it or leave it, but I want you to move on.’

Detecting anxiety in the occupant’s voice, Wolfe’s grin widened. He tested the door with his shoulder. Bump.

‘I’m telling you. I’ve got a baseball bat in here. Now fuck off.’

Wolfe’s voice lowered to a growl. ‘You shouldn’t have said that to me.’ He stood back and kicked the door just below the lock. The timber frame split, but held. His foot poised to stamp down from a higher angle, he heard the tinkle of a bicycle bell coming from down the lane.

The signalman shouted from the window, ‘Mum, don’t stop! Turn around quick. Ride away. Don’t argue. Just do it!’

Brakes squealed. An elderly woman came into view, slowed to a stop, and dismounting, called out, ‘What did you say, Ronald?’

Wolfe thundered down the stairs.

‘Mum! Run!’

She saw the hulking figure of the stranger bearing down on her, and desperately scooted the bike, trying to get back on.

Behind him, Wolfe heard the door unlock and the rumble of footsteps rattling the wooden framework of the stairs.

‘Leave her alone,’ Ronald cried. ‘I’ll swing for you, I swear, if you touch her.’

Panic-stricken, and unable to propel herself faster without remounting, the old lady shouted, ‘Go back inside, Ronald, he won’t catch me. I’ll fetch the police!’ She threw her leg over the bicycle. Her skirt caught on the saddle. She lost balance and hopped on one foot while disentangling herself. Lost precious seconds. A glance over her shoulder showed the giant was almost on her. She screamed.

Wolfe snatched at her hair. A handful grabbed, he dragged her from the bike. Aware of heavy footsteps and panting breath coming from behind, he swung round and saw her son.

The signalman raised his bat to strike. ‘I fucking warned you,’ he snarled, bringing the weapon down with all his might.

Wolfe, in a blur of movement, hoisted the old lady aloft, a rag doll in his hands, her body used as a shield.

The woman’s son tried to divert the blow. It crashed home with sickening force, smashing her skull, cleaving her head open.

Face aghast, the man screamed, ‘No!’

Wolfe let the corpse fall. Licking blood from both hands, he growled, ‘I told you shouldn’t have said that to me. All I wanted was a glass of water, and now look what you’ve done.’

Rage and grief contorted the man’s face. He roared, raising the bat shoulder-high, as if about to score a home run.

Wolfe didn’t move until the last moment. He leaned back out of range, the club missing by a hair’s breadth, and whipped forwards from the waist to grab the man’s throat. His fingers dug deep into flesh on either side of the larynx, and he yanked his second victim towards him. Ronald, captured in an unrelenting grasp, kicked and flailed, gurgled and choked, his eyes bulging from his head. Tighter. Tighter. Wolfe slowly crushed his windpipe, taking pleasure at the ineffectual taps of the bat on his back and buttocks. With frightening ease, he lifted the signalman up and held the lifeless body away to see the feet dancing, twitched by muscles yet to receive the message that life had gone. A moment later, Wolfe dropped him. The body thumped to the ground.

Wolfe carried the old woman upstairs last, along with her handbag, and dumped her on top of her son. After going back down to conceal the bicycle, he returned. ‘Nice of you both to invite me for lunch.’ Although he was famished, the choice between a broiler and lardy flesh
didn’t appeal. On a hunch, he searched her bag and retrieved a tin-foil package from it. ‘How nice of her to bring us these,’ he said, and then, swinging the armchair around, he unwrapped the sandwiches and ate them at the desk.

After he’d eaten, he toyed with the idea of arranging the pair into a compromising position. Although the idea amused him, tiredness took command of his eyelids. Pointless, he thought, to fight a losing battle against himself, so he settled comfortably, looking round his new lair at row upon row of colour-coded levers. If he wasn’t so exhausted, he’d have had a play with them.

Heavy-lidded, his eyes closed, and not inclined to reopen them, Wolfe sank into the welcoming arms of soporific darkness, descending the worn and slippery steps into dank tunnels. The man he’d so often seen executing prostitutes and others down on their luck, exchanged the blood on his clothes and skin for the filth of sewer water. He beckoned him to follow. Wolfe grinned acceptance and together, they made their escape to dine on a choice cut taken from the man’s latest victim.