David Jackson - The Helper

‘I didn’t. This was way before Everett even knew I existed. There were two others like this before I came on the scene. He established the pattern himself. I just made it easier for him to continue.’

‘Then how did you know he was doing this stuff? How’d you get hold of the home movie?’

Gonzo laughs. ‘You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you? I’m amazed. It’s really quite simple.’

Doyle waits for the explanation, but Gonzo isn’t forthcoming. The two stare at each other, even though they are not physically in the same room. Doyle has to keep reminding himself that he’s alone here. Just him and numerous boxes formed from metal and plastic. And yet he’s never felt so much the focus of attention.

The voice that breaks the silence also breaks his heart. It shouldn’t be heard here. Not amongst all this death and violence.

‘Whatcha doin’, hon?’ is all the voice says.

It’s the voice of Rachel. Doyle’s wife.

A different monitor this time. Doyle races over to it. He sees a close-up image of Rachel, staring right back at him. It’s like she’s been abducted from the real world and converted to a stream of bits that has been imprisoned in this machine.

‘Rachel!’ he says. ‘RACHEL!’

Gonzo says, ‘She can’t hear you, Cal.’

Rachel turns her head slightly. She’s listening to another voice. That’s when Doyle realizes she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to their daughter.

He doesn’t quite catch what Amy says, but Rachel replies with, ‘No, don’t wear that one. Wear the blue one.’

When Amy responds with a whine, Rachel rolls her eyes and moves away from the camera. Doyle watches her go. Watches her walk right out of the room. He knows that room.

It’s their living room.

It’s where he lives. He’s looking straight into their apartment. How the hell can he-

And then he figures it out. It’s the point of view. It tells him exactly where the camera is in his home. It’s where the computer sits on its desk.

The computer with a webcam.

The realization stuns Doyle. He never knew such things were possible.

‘You’ve taken control of our computer. You can see everything we do in that room. You can hear everything we say. That’s. . that’s how you know so much about me. And those movies of Everett. You got those in the same way, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right, Cal. He kept a computer in the spare bedroom where he looked after his poor sick mother. It’s how I found him. It’s how I found all of them.’

‘All of them?’

Gonzo smiles again, and another voice cuts in. Doyle turns to see Cindy Mellish in profile. She’s in her nightdress, and she’s talking on the phone. She’s crying as she tells her ex-boyfriend how she’s planning to cut her wrists.

Three desks along, another monitor flashes on. Lorna Bonnow. Sitting up in bed with her lover. Telling him the story that Alex later told Doyle, about how she wanted to jump out in front of that ambulance.

From behind Doyle, another voice. Doyle looks round to see Vasey. He’s sitting in his office chair, listening and nodding. The voice he’s listening to belongs to Sean Hanrahan, and he’s talking about how close he came to putting his service weapon in his mouth.

On yet another monitor, Vasey again. At his desk, but on the phone this time. He’s pleading with his wife. Telling her how he doesn’t think he can manage without her. Doesn’t know what he might do when he gets home. He’s even thought about ending his own life. .

Then there’s Tabitha. Curled up on a sofa. Tears running down her cheeks. Sitting alongside her, stroking her hand, is old Mrs Serafinowicz. Tabitha is telling her about her trip to the Brooklyn Bridge.

And to top it all, there’s a moment of fame in the collection for poor old Mrs Sachs too. Not her image. Not even her voice. What makes this hardest of all to watch is that it’s Doyle himself, telling his wife the story of the sad, wizened lady who once made the mistake of wishing she could swap places with her terrified daughter. It’s Doyle himself who is sounding the death knell for Mrs Sachs.

The recorded clips are brief — just enough to capture the moment each victim orally signed their death warrants — and they are on a loop. Each time they repeat, the volume level increases. Doyle finds himself rotating slowly on the spot, his gaze skipping from screen to screen as the words overlap and the sound builds. This is how he did it, he thinks. This is how he infiltrated lives. He’s the ultimate voyeur. He sees all, hears all. You don’t even need your own computer. You just have to know someone who does. That’s why Lorna Bonnow and Sean Hanrahan and even Mrs Sachs weren’t safe.

Incredible.

While Doyle tries to absorb all this, tries to cope with the enormity of it all, the volume from all the computer speakers continues to mount, the calls for execution being hammered into him, until all he wants to do is put his hands to his ears to drown out the cacophony.

And then it stops. The computer screens turn to black again. All the dead withdraw into oblivion. The only face remaining is Gonzo’s.

Doyle says, ‘Why would Everett be interested in these people? What were they to him?’

‘Everett was mad as a hatter. The only thing he wanted to do was kill people while telling himself he was doing them a service. I gave him that opportunity. I just called him up, the same way I called you. Told him I knew all about what he’d done to his mother and those girls. He was terrified at first. I think he believed I was God or the Devil or something. I used some fancy words — told him I would help him to pursue his calling, or something like that — and he jumped at the chance.’

‘So,’ Doyle says, ‘this is what you’ve been doing with your life. Spying on people, searching for victims to feed to your pet serial killer.’

Gonzo shrugs. ‘Beats television. Have you seen the crap they put out there these days? Having said that, most of what you guys get up to is pretty damned dull, you know. Sorry to be insulting, Cal, but what you do behind closed doors doesn’t exactly light any fires, you know what I mean? Except, that is, when you talked about Mrs Sachs.’

Doyle decides not to join in with Gonzo’s laughter at his own joke.

‘So why bother? If it didn’t look like I was going to be one of your precious victims, why bother with watching me?’

‘Why? Because you were valuable in a different way.’

‘How so?’

‘You were a cop. A detective, no less. That meant I could get you involved. That’s why I found Everett a victim in your precinct. It’s why I got him to write your phone number on Cindy Mellish’s wrist. I thought the message would eventually get back to you, even if you weren’t initially assigned to the case.’

‘Still doesn’t explain why you picked me. I’m sure you’ve found lots of detectives on your little box of tricks. You could have picked any one of them.’

‘True. But not all of them know Lonnie Adelman.’

It takes a second for Doyle to realize what Gonzo is telling him.

‘The diary.’

‘Yes, the diary. Who else were you going to take that laptop to but your computer expert buddy Lonnie? That was my way in. I knew Lonnie would pass the computer on to me. The plan was I would contact you directly after that. I wasn’t even sure it would be face to face. I thought maybe a quick phone call, using my fake voice. That’s why I used my real voice when I first called you at home. ’Course, what I didn’t expect was that Lonnie would actually bring you into my room to introduce you. Jeez, that was a panic moment. I couldn’t use that ridiculous voice in front of him, and I couldn’t use my normal voice in front of you. Luckily, Lonnie didn’t hang around long enough to hear me speak.’