‘Chris, I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Did I sound the same? The way I always sound. My voice.’ He sucked in a deep breath.‘This is fucking useless.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she protested. ‘I’m trying to help but—’
‘Could it have been someone pretending to be me? Someone imitating my voice?’
She shook her head. ‘Why would they want to do that?‘Jenny enquired.
‘That’s what I want to know.’
‘You rang me. You said you wanted me to come here and you said you wanted me to arrange to bring another girl too. You said you’d pay whatever it cost.
That’s what you said.’
Ward poured himself another drink and began pacing the sitting room slowly.
‘What about tonight?’ said Jenny finally. Her voice was hesitant, as if she was reluctant to break the oppressive silence.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you want me tonight?’
He stopped pacing and looked at her with something approaching contempt.
‘Well, you’re here, aren’t you?’ he muttered.
She finished her drink then made her way upstairs.
Ward followed a moment later.
UNEXPECTED VISIONS
There was blood everywhere. Ward woke up in it. He smelt it in his nostrils.
That acrid, coppery stench.
When he opened his eyes he saw it all over the walls. It had soaked into the duvet like ink into blotting paper. It was splashed on the carpet. There was even some on the ceiling.
He sat up on the bed and realised he was naked. His body was covered with the sticky, crimson fluid. Some had congealed. Some had the tacky texture of drying paint. His hair was matted with it. Barely an inch of his flesh was untouched by the red splatters.
Ward felt his stomach contract. He gritted his teeth to prevent himself from vomiting.
He ran his hands over his body, his eyes scanning the flesh. There were no cuts. This was not his blood.
He dragged himself off the bed, gazing at his reflection in the mirrored doors of the wardrobe. He ran a hand over his face and smeared more of the crimson fluid over his cheeks.
Ward turned towards the bathroom, blundered in and turned the shower on to full power. He didn’t even wait for the jets to become warm but dived straight beneath them, anxious to wash away this foul coating that covered him like a second skin. The cold water hit his skin like pinpricks and he looked down to see the blood swirling away down the plughole.
All the time he stood beneath the spray he forced himself to think what might have happened. He could remember nothing. Nothing from the previous night.
Nothing that might have caused this carnage.
He washed the last of the blood from his body then reached for a towel and wrapped it around himself.
Again he tried to think. As he stepped back into the bedroom he saw something lying beside the bed. It was a piece of material. Like everything else in the room, it was soaked in blood.
Ward turned it between his shaking hands and realised that it was lace. Once it had been white. Now it bore the indelible colour of life fluid. But whose?
He rubbed the material between thumb and forefinger. The realisation hit him like a sledgehammer. He was holding a pair of knickers.
He touched the smooth gusset. Pulled gently on the elastic around the waist area. The clothing looked like a bandage that had been pressed to an arterial wound. A cloth plug attempting to staunch an unstoppable flow of blood.
He shook his head. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured.
He sat on the floor beside the bed, still holding the knickers.
Beneath the stained counterpane he spotted something else. It was a knee-length boot.
Ward reached under the bed and pulled it out. The leather was new. He smelt it. Held it close to him as a child might grip a comforter.
There was a sock inside it. That too was also covered in blood.
There was something familiar about this boot. Something …
A vision drifted into his mind. Of a girl with streaked brown hair. A girl in knee-length leather boots, denim shorts and a yellow T-shirt.
Jenny.
The boot was hers. So were the knickers. By implication, so was the blood.
Ward swallowed hard. What the fuck had happened in here last night? Where was Jenny?
Questions raced through his mind. He knew he had no answer to any of them. He sat naked beside the bed, surrounded by the blood and he tried to think. He remembered answering the door to her. Remembered giving her a drink. Then, after that, nothing. Just empty blackness where his memory should be.
Ward got to his feet and hurried out of the room, heading for his bedroom. He snatched up the phone and dialled Jenny’s number. It rang three times.
He knew she shared a flat with another girl. If she was there she might know where Jenny was.
The phone still rang.
‘Come on,’ Ward gasped.
Finally it was answered.
‘Hello,’ said Ward quickly.
‘Hello,’ said the voice at the other end.
‘I want to speak to Jenny’
‘Who is this?’
‘Just let me speak to her, will you? I want to arrange an appointment to see her.’
‘She’s not here at the moment.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know. She was out all last night and—’
‘When will she be back?’
‘Well, she said she’d be back this morning but—’
‘What’s her mobile number?’
‘I can make the appointment for you if you like.’
‘No, just give me the number.’
‘Hang on a minute.’
He heard rustling, papers being shifted.
‘I’ve got the number. Have you got a pen?’
‘Just give it to me,’ he snapped.
The girl had barely finished speaking when Ward slammed the phone down. He lifted the receiver again then dialled Jenny’s mobile number. And waited. And …
There was a high-pitched ringing inside the room. Ward dropped the phone and ducked down on to the blood-spattered carpet. The ringing was coming from beneath the bed. He reached under and pulled out Jenny’s mobile.
She had been here. No doubt. But where the hell was she now?
Ward dropped the phone and sat motionless on the floor.
SEARCH
It took him over five hours to clean the bedroom. Wearing just a pair of shorts, he slaved inside what had become a charnel house, washing and scraping away the crimson fluid. He carried the duvet downstairs and shoved it into the washing machine.
