Liza Hogg invited them in, flicking on light switches as she passed them in her dressing gown and slippers. They followed her through to the sitting room, where three cats had made a bed of the sofa.
Liza shooed them away.
They sat down, Nigel and Heather on the small, threadbare sofa decorated with a faded floral pattern.
Nigel kept quiet -- he felt awkward even being there, but Heather had insisted he came.
Heather apologized for barging in. 'We're actually interested in the whereabouts of a relative of yours.'
'I've only one,' she said slowly, as if still escaping the clutches of sleep. 'You mean Karl?'
'Have you seen him recently?'
Liza shook her head. 'He doesn't visit me much these days.'
'He used to?'
'He used to live with me. After all that happened.'
'All what happened?'
Liza, more awake it seemed, sighed deeply. 'Where do you want to start? The poor lad hasn't had an easy life.'
Heather and Nigel exchanged a glance.
'Go on,' Heather urged.
'His father raised him and his brother for a while.
But then he was driving back from work one day when a drink-driver lost control and smashed into him. He died. Karl took it very bad. He was close to his dad. And to his brother. He came to live with me; his brother went to university. They were strange lads, the pair of them. His brother, David, had a lot of problems. He took his own life at university. Hanged himself.'
Nigel had witnessed much of this tragedy while researching the bloodline at the FRC, but it was only here, coming from the mouth of an old woman, that he saw just how bleak it had been. As if their blood had been tainted.
'Karl withdrew completely when he moved in. Sat up here staring at the walls. Didn't want to do anything with life. The only thing he was interested in was our family's history. You see, we've a rather chequered past.'
'Yes,' Heather said. 'Did Karl know about that?'
Liza nodded. 'We all knew about that.'
*You said Karl got interested?'
'To say the least. All he did was research that. He'd go to the sites of the murders. All day and all night he walked. It was the 1980s; a lot was going on around here. Finally he came out of himself, starting to write about the place, its history. Became obsessed with that, too. At least it stopped him reading and rereading the letter.'
Liza got up and shuffled to a drawer in a bureau at the far side of the room. She opened it and rustled around. Time seemed to stand still. Nigel could not bear it. Come on! he thought to himself, casting an impatient glance at a wooden clock on the mantelpiece.
Eventually the old woman emerged with a piece of yellowing paper, neatly folded.
'This is the letter I showed him.' She handed it to them. 'It's the suicide note written by Segar's son, Esau. Karl used to read it almost every night.'
Heather opened it up carefully. The paper was fragile, the folds worn almost to the point of disintegration.
Nigel leaned in so he could read it too. The writing was a scrawl, though still legible. There was no introduction, no signature, but it looked to Nigel as if it was genuine.
/ knew He killed. I cannot relate what it was that drew me to that conclusion. The look-in his eye, the hours he began to keep, a sense of awfulforeboding. As the police discovered each victim, it became clearer to me that my father was responsible. I could point to no evidence save his night-time excursions and the cold glimmer of hatred in his eyes. He had long since stopped communicating with me. I disappointed him, that was clear. I did alt I could to keep out of his path.
One night I heard him leave. I climbed from my window to the street below. The fog was thicks blanketing the city, muffling its sounds. I simply listened and followed his soft wolf-like tread. I shadowed him all the way until he grabbed some poor soul staggering back^
from a night of drinks I heard a muffled cry and then watched him fall. My father turned, I ducked away, then he made his way back, home.
I failed to get back, before he did. The next morning he asked where I was. I concocted a tale of meeting a friend, though I knew it would earn me a beating. He only stopped when my mother begged him to. I lay on my bed on my front, weeping as my mother tended the wounds to my backhand backside from the strap, praying to whichever God for the peelers to come and take him away.
But they never came.
From that day he sank further into insanity. He made us pray four times a day. would beat me incessantly. Then came the night. He urged us to follow him down to the cellar. 'Each night since, I remember the damp smell, the cold floor, then the noise . . . my mother gurgling, spluttering, choking on her own blood. He grabbed me and plunged the knife into my neck! eyes wide as saucers and brimming with mania. I remember nothing else.
/ was struck^dumb from then on, forever to keep the dark^secret quiet in my heart. until this day when I end my own wretched life. I carry that man's blood. 'With me it ends. It is my fervent dying hope that those who proceed can live without this stain on their souls.
Heather folded the letter back up. You said he doesn't come by very often these days,' she said.
Liza shook her head. 'Once or twice a year. Not quite sure what he's up to. He hasn't written one of his books in a while; he usually brings me a copy, but hasn't done for at least a year. While he wrote them he seemed OK. I think he thought the world would listen - it didn't. But the last time I saw him, he said he was working on another project.'
'Do you know what he does, where he goes, any friends?'
'Not these days. He used to spend a lot of time around the site of the house.'
'The house?'
'On Pamber Street. Segar Kellogg's house.'
When Foster surfaced, he couldn't speak. His mouth gaped helplessly wide, wedged open to its furthest extremity, as if stuck at the midpoint of a yawn. He tried to bring both jaws together but his jaw felt locked in place. From the bottom of his field of vision, he could just make out a metal plate on his top lip. He took a few desperate breaths through his wide-open mouth, the air rushing in gulps, drying his throat in an instant. There was a fleeting moment of panic when it felt as if his throat would seize and he would not be able to breathe.
By inhaling through his nostrils he managed to regain control. Not my teeth, he thought. With his tongue he flicked at the top and bottom rows, only able to reach the latter. They were covered by what felt like a strip of rubber. Some contraption had prised open his mouth.
'Unfortunately, I won't be able to take any more questions from the floor,' he heard his killer's voice say, 'the floor now being unable to ask any questions.'
Foster struggled against his restraints like a wounded, cornered beast, instinct and preservation kicking in once more, damning the pain each minor movement caused.
This wasn't how he thought it was going to end.
Not like this. A heart attack one night, maybe. Or some bullet from a suspect they had forced into a corner. All of these he had considered when lying in bed, or mulling over a glass of red. But not being tortured by a fucking maniac. If he had a gun and the use of his hands, he would have no hesitation in blowing his own brains out.
'The item you are wearing is called, rather bluntly, a mouth opener. I've adapted it a bit, but it's used in sadomasochistic circles in pursuit of helpless degradation and absolute control. God bless the Internet.'
He leaned in closer; Foster could feel his warm breath on his face.
'You can't see, but there are two screws here.'
The contraption moved. The screws were at either side of his mouth.
If I turn them clockwise they bring the two metal plates that are covering your upper and lower sets of teeth closer together.'
Foster felt the contraption loosen and his jawbone relax with an ache.
