You Are Dead

96

Saturday 20 December

It felt for an instant as if all the warmth had been drained from his body. Roy Grace dropped the torch in shock. The beam jigged as it rolled a short distance along the concrete floor, and he ducked down, grabbed it, swinging it in a wide arc. Disorienting reflections from shiny objects glared back at him. There was a dank smell.

Then he saw three glinting pairs of eyes staring straight at him.

For an instant he froze in shock.

Moments later the entire chamber was illuminated by weak, green-hued wall lights. Grace saw what had glinted in his torch beam. Three cylindrical glass tubes hanging from the ceiling by metal chains. Each was filled to the capped top with a liquid that looked faintly murky, like pond water, in the green light.

Inside each cylinder was a pale pink creature, held upright in suspension by a wire around its neck. At first he thought there was an animal inside each one. A pig?

Jesus, was Crisp conducting secret experiments on animals down here?

But as his eyes sprang from one cylinder to the next and then the next he realized, with a chill that rippled deep inside him, that these were not animals. They were human beings. It was their eyes staring at him.

Naked adult males, in their late twenties, or early thirties, their eyes wide open, staring sightlessly. Without arms or legs. One was almost bald, two of them had ragged hair, and each had several days’ growth of stubble.

His skin crawled. For an instant, he felt as if he had walked onto the film set of a modern Alice In Wonderland. Were these holograms? Some trick of projection? What in God’s name was he looking at?

Then, suddenly, a huge screen lit up a short distance to his left. On it was a video of Edward Crisp, seated in a leather chair in front of a desk, in the office Grace recognized from upstairs in the house. He was immaculately dressed in a suit and tie, and wearing a very smug grin. The doctor leaned forward, raising his arms, animatedly. The same posh public school voice boomed out all around Grace. ‘Really, Detective Superintendent, it is quite a privilege to welcome you to my little secret abode! I’d like to introduce you to my colleagues who have helped me so much in my planning for my projects. These are my dead friends! I don’t think you’ve had the opportunity to meet Marcus, Harrison and Felix? We really have become very dear friends, although it wasn’t always that way.’

Grace glanced again, in revulsion, at the limbless bodies, then back at the screen. Crisp’s eyes gleamed with pure joy behind his glasses.

‘Marcus Gossage, Felix Gore-Parker and Harrison Chaffinch — although I think you might know him as Harrison Hunter — a much classier name, I thought. Marcus is the one without much hair!’

Grace looked back at the man in the glass cylinder on the left. He had a prematurely balding dome and wispy hair on either side, piggy eyes and a pouting expression, like a beached trout.

‘Next to him,’ Crisp continued, ‘is Felix Gore-Parker, a rather mean-looking fellow, I think you’d have to agree?’

The body in the middle cylinder had a long, equine face, with lank fair hair and a sour expression. Roy Grace realized he had not noticed before that he was wearing, bizarrely, a pair of round, wire-rimmed spectacles.

‘And lastly we have Harrison. He was very overweight, I don’t think he would have ever made old bones. But, hey, he doesn’t have to worry about that now, does he?’

The hairs on the back of Grace’s neck stood up.

‘These were the three school bullies who made my life hell, Detective Superintendent. They called me Mole, because they didn’t like my interest in tunnels and potholing. Well, to be truthful, they didn’t like anything about me. But they all loved me in the end. I got each of them to say those words to me before I killed them. Although actually, it had never been my intention to kill them, I’d planned to keep them alive long enough to teach them a lesson they would never forget. And I sure succeeded!’

Grace stared around him, warily. Where was crazy Dr Crisp? Lurking in the shadows while he was distracted by the video?

He swung the torch beam into the darkness behind him, then all around. Was the doctor out there, waiting to pounce? He wished he had brought a more powerful torch. And backup. He stared at his phone, but it still showed there was no signal.

‘They say revenge is a dish best served cold, I’m sure you are familiar with that, Detective Superintendent? I waited for a good length of time after leaving The Cloisters school before taking my first project, Marcus Gossage, the one on the left. I sent him a wedding invite. Told him as a special school friend I’d be sending a chauffeured car to pick him up. Of course, he got that, a lovely Mercedes. I was the driver. Knocked him out with a gas spray and brought him down here. Then I had fun amputating his arms and legs, but keeping him alive, and suspending him from the ceiling in a muslin sack, in nappies, and with a drip feed. You really cannot imagine how sweet that was!’

Roy Grace turned back to the three bodies in the glass tanks. Another shudder rippled through him. He was feeling sick. For an instant he wondered if his mind was playing tricks. Could this be real? Could any human being have done this to another human being?

‘With Felix Gore-Parker — I invited him to an old school house reunion. Told him I would give him a lift as I wasn’t drinking. Harrison was a doddle — told him I wanted to pop round to see him to talk about helping to save the school! Of course, there were police enquiries at the time. But I’m no fool, Detective Superintendent. I left a good couple of years’ gap between each of them. Felix had been living in Edinburgh at the time, Marcus in Manchester and Harrison in Bath. The police had no reason to link their disappearances.’

Grace stared at them all in disbelief. Was this possible? Had Crisp really done this — and kept these bodies down here for so long?

‘I know what you are thinking, Detective Superintendent, you are wondering where is Logan Somerville. And of course my latest project, the policewoman. Don’t forget her. I’m particularly proud of sneaking this one in at the very last minute — after my last project went pear-shaped when the bloody dog bit me — and I have to admit she was a bit of a challenge! But I needed to distract you and remain in control. It really is so nice to finally meet you — I’m only sorry it is not in person. But I figured that meeting you in person wouldn’t result in a very happy ending. And I’m a bit of a sentimental old fool really, I like happy endings! Don’t we all? So I’ve good news — my three boys are finally free! Have fun, Harrison, Marcus and Felix. Hope you’ve enjoyed your time down here with me. I wish I could have kept you alive, in the original sacks I had for you — they were rather appropriate containers for you, since you are three bags of shit! Your bullying at school gave me a life sentence, but I’m not a monster. You’ve done your time. So now, hey, enjoy your release!’

He gave a broad beam.

Transfixed, Grace studied the doctor’s body language. His eyes were all over the place. His face was twitching. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. He was giving out all the signals of someone who had totally lost the plot.

‘You didn’t come here expecting to find these, did you, Detective Grace? This is a little bonus for you. What you want are the girls. But I thought you should know that initially I planned to keep these three alive, hanging here in muslin bags, for the rest of their natural lives, just like Catherine the Great did — I’ll tell you more about her anon. But with my family life and my work as a doctor, and all the tunnelling stuff that’s my hobby, it all got just a little too inconvenient. They needed too much maintenance, and I’m pretty much a low-maintenance guy. So I found a solution. Formaldehyde — or formalin as some call it. I wanted them around to remind me of how sweet revenge can be, which it did every day I saw them. They’ve been hugely helpful in all of my escapades, never disagreeing once with any of my plans! But enough about these, they’re history now. You need to find little Logan Somerville and little Louise Masters. Ask the boys, they know everything. They’re my accomplices. I could never have done any of this without them!’ He raised an arm in the air and wiggled his immaculately manicured hand. ‘Bye for now, boys!’

Crisp folded his arms and sat back for some moments. Then he opened his arms again, expansively. ‘Oh dear, I forgot, Felix, Marcus and Harrison have very limited conversational skills these days. The ladies you are looking for are in the room next door, behind this screen. Bye for now!’

The screen faded to black.