Tania Carver - Cage of Bones

So she had come inside. Got changed, had a shower. Ignored the white wine in the fridge, gone straight to whisky.

And now she stood in her towelling bathrobe, drinking, watching. All those other people. In their cars, on the streets, the trains, in their own homes. All those ordinary lives. Those brief lives.

At one time she would have called them boring. Living life blindfolded, she would have said. Unable to experience everything, do everything. Limited, bound by convention. By fear. Lynn hadn’t been like that. She had prided herself on not being like that. She had wanted to experience everything, push herself to the extreme. She wanted to control, dominate. She wanted power, too. Had been brought up that way. Not just to feel superior, but to be superior.

She was her mother’s daughter in every respect.

And look where it had got her.

Her hand trembled as it held the glass. She took another sip. Made it a mouthful. Felt the liquid burn as it travelled down inside her.

It was no more than she deserved.

What she had done, the things she had been responsible for, the lives she had ruined, ended… Not her personally. Never her personally. But she had been there, in the background, pulling the strings. Dominating. Powerful.

Tears sprang into her eyes then. She looked down once more at the town. Thought of all the lives she had controlled, had taken. They could have still been here. They could have been like the people down there. Living their small, unimaginative lives. Beautiful lives, the kind she would never live.

Lynn thought of Mickey Philips. Of last night. He had given her a glimpse of another life. A better life. Happier. There had been a connection there, a real connection. And she had let it go. She’d had to. He would never have understood. Then she thought of that afternoon in the interview room. And how he had nearly reached her. A little bit more time… and that would have been that.

She might as well have done. Told him what he wanted. She knew what was going to happen now. Knew she couldn’t go back. She was tainted. No use. Just had to accept it.

Another mouthful. Her glass was empty. She reached down, tipped more in from the bottle. Replaced it on the deck. Heard a noise from behind her. She didn’t turn round.

‘I let myself in,’ a familiar voice said.

He joined her on the balcony. She turned. Saw Glass’s features looking out over the town. Another mouthful. It burned.

Neither of them spoke. For her, it was the silence of resignation. For him, she knew it must be the silence of anticipation.

‘I know what you’re here to do,’ she said, taking another mouthful, vision swimming from all the whisky.

He sighed. ‘This could have ended so differently, you know.’

‘I know.’ Another mouthful. Bigger this time.

‘I had high hopes for you. Such high hopes… ’ He stroked her shoulder.

She had felt his touch so many times before. Never tired of it. Now, she just wanted to fall into his embrace, sleep it all away.

She took another mouthful. The glass was empty. She refilled it.

‘Careful,’ he said, ‘you don’t want to drink it all. Lucky I brought you another.’

He placed an identical bottle next to the first one. Same brand, same size. She noticed he was wearing latex gloves.

‘And here,’ he said, reaching into his jacket pocket. He took out a brown plastic bottle, rattled it. ‘Something to help you sleep.’

She took the bottle from him. Nodded.

‘I’ll wait while you do it,’ he said.

‘I thought you might.’ Her mouth was dry despite all the liquid she had been pouring down it. She twisted the top off the bottle, shook out a few pills. Took them one at a time, swallowing them down with a mouthful of whisky.

He watched her all the while.

The pills went down easily. So easily.

‘And another handful,’ he said.

She did as she was told. The amount of whisky getting larger with each pill.

Her tears were falling freely now. She could hardly see the town, between the blur of salt water in her eyes and the alcohol affecting her vision. And now the pills. Could hardly see anything at all.

Her sobs became vocal. He shushed her. Not unkindly; tenderly. Like a lover would. She tried to be as quiet as she could.

Soon the pill bottle was empty. She let it drop on the deck.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Won’t be long now.’

‘Will you… will you wait with me… ’

He looked at his watch. Back to her. She thought she saw a flash of irritation in his eyes. Blinked. It was gone.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait.’

He stood next to her, watching.

She began to feel tired. Her head spinning. She closed her eyes.

‘Take another drink,’ his voice said.

She did so.

‘Good girl.’

She closed her eyes once more. The town was slipping away. The balcony. The flat. Him. It was suddenly an effort to stand up. So she sat down. She heard glass breaking. Didn’t have the energy to find out what it was, where it was. She just wanted to rest.

Then it was too hard to sit. She needed to lie down. She did so. Heard his voice.

‘I’ll see myself out.’

From the other end of a long, dark tunnel. Didn’t have the strength, the words to answer him with. Let him go.

Tired. So tired. Sleep. She wanted sleep. It would be so peaceful.

So…

Lynn Windsor fell asleep.

‘You ready, then?’

Marina nodded and got in the car. They set off for Halstead.

Neither spoke. Johnny Cash: Unchained provided the soundtrack.

‘You OK?’ Marina asked eventually, her voice low.

Johnny Cash was singing about how everything was done with a Southern accent where he came from. Some beautiful guitar work accompanying him.

Phil nodded as he drove. ‘Working through it. You know.’ He turned to her. Smiled. ‘We’ll get there.’

She placed her hand on his thigh. He kept it there.

The drive out to Halstead was busier than they had expected, catching the tail end of the evening rush-hour traffic. With the darkness had come rain, blowing across the road in front of them, hitting the windscreen like sheets of diamond-hard static. Cars were moving slowly on the twisting country roads, taking time on the hills, avoiding skids and spills.

They followed the villages along the River Colne, eventually arriving in Halstead.

Phil came to the crossroads in the town centre, went right. As he did so, he looked down the hill leading to the old mill at the bottom that represented the town centre. It was an old market town, the original architecture maintained, a place of decent restaurants, bars and pubs, upmarket independent furnishing stores. He and Marina had driven out for Sunday lunch a few times, bought a couple of little things for their new house. The shops were still hanging on. A few more empty ones than previously, a few more charity shops sprung up. He saw Marina looking.

‘We’ll have to come back here one Sunday,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘When this is over.’

‘Yeah. When this is over.’

He drove out of the centre, down the hill towards the Halstead Manor Hotel. Pulled up in the gravel driveway. Johnny Cash was singing that it was so hard to see the rainbow through glasses as dark as his. Phil turned the music off. They looked at each other.

‘Ready?’ said Phil.

‘You sure this is going to work?’ said Marina. ‘Asking a mad tramp what’s going on?’

‘Let’s hope so,’ he said.

‘You sure he’s not the murderer?’

‘Wouldn’t I have brought him in if he was?’

Marina shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You haven’t been thinking straight these last few days.’

Phil sighed. ‘I know. But I looked at him, looked in his eyes. It’s not him, Marina. He’s damaged, yes, troubled. But not a killer. He wanted the Garden to be a place of healing. Retreat.’