Clive Barker: Age of Desire

He stared at his hands and arms. The illusion, far from retreating in the face of this scrutiny, increased. Beads of brightness, like the traces of fire in ash, began to climb through his veins, multiplying even as he watched. Curiously, he felt no distress. This burgeoning fire merely reflected the passion in the story the songs were telling him. Love, they said, was in the air, around every corner, waiting to be found. He thought again of the widow Morrisey in the flat below him, going about her business, sighing, no doubt, as he had done; awaiting her hero.

The more he thought of her the more inflamed he became. She would not reject him, of that the songs convinced him. Or if she did he must press his case until (again, as the songs promised) she surrendered to him. Suddenly, at the thought of her surrender, the fire engulfed him.

Laughing, he left the radio singing behind him and made his way downstairs.

It had taken the best part of the morning to assemble a list of testees employed at the laboratories. Carnegie had sensed a reluctance on the part of the establishment to open their files to the investigation despite the horror that had been committed on its premises. Finally, just after noon, they had presented him with a hastily assembled who’s who of subjects, four and a half dozen in toto and their addresses. None, the offices claimed, matched the description of Welles’s testee. The doctors, it was explained, had been clearly using laboratory facilities to work on private projects. Though this was not encouraged, both had been senior researchers, and allowed leeway on the matter. It was likely, therefore, that the man Carnegie was seeking had never even been on the laboratories’ payroll. Undaunted, Carnegie ordered a selection of photographs taken off the video recording and had them distributed — with the list of names and address — to his officers. From then on it was down to footwork and patience.

Leo Boyle ran his finger down the list of names he had been given. “Another fourteen,” he said. His driver grunted, and Boyle glanced across at him. “You were McBride’s partner, weren’t you?” he said.

“That’s right,” Dooley replied. “He’s been suspended.” “Why?”

Dooley scowled. “Lacks finesse, that Virgil. Can’t get the hang of arrest technique.” Dooley drew the car to a halt.

“Is this is?” Boyle asked.

“You said number eighty. This is eighty. On the door. Eight. Oh.” “I’ve got eyes.”

Boyle got out of the car and made his way up the pathway. The house was sizable, and had been divided into flats. There were several bells. He pressed for J. Tredgold — the name on his list — and waited. Of the five houses they had so far visited, two had been unoccupied and the residents of the other three had born no resemblance to the malefactor.

Boyle waited on the step a few seconds and then pressed the bell again; a longer ring this time.

“Nobody in,” Dooley said from the pavement.

“Looks like it.” Even as he spoke Boyle caught sight of a figure flitting across the hallway, its outline distorted by the cobblestone glass in the door. “Wait a minute,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Somebody’s in there and not answering.” He pressed the first bell again, and then the others. Dooley approached up the pathway, flicking away an overattentive wasp.

“You sure?” he said.

“I saw somebody in there.”

“Press the other bells,” Dooley suggested.

“I already did. There’s somebody in there and they don’t want to come to the door.” He rapped on the glass. “Open up,” he announced. “Police.” Clever, thought Dooley; why not a loudspeaker, so heaven knows too? When the door, predictably, remained unanswered, Boyle turned to Dooley. “Is there a side gate?” “Yes, sir.”

“Then get around the back, pronto, before he’s away.” “Shouldn’t we call—?”

“Do it! I’ll keep watch here. If you can get in the back come through and open the front door.”

Dooley moved, leaving Boyle alone at the front door. He rang the series of bells again and, cupping his hand to his brow, put his face to the glass. There was no sign of movement in the hallway. Was it possible that the bird had already flown? He backed down the path and stared up at the windows; they stared back vacuously. Ample time had now passed for Dooley to get around the back of the house, but so far he had neither reappeared nor called. Stymied where he stood, and nervous that his tactics had lost them their quarry, Boyle decided to follow his nose around the back of the house.

The side gate had been left open by Dooley. Boyle advanced up the side passage, glancing through a window into an empty living room before heading around to the back door. It was open. Dooley, however, was not in sight. Boyle pocketed the photograph and the list and stepped inside, loath to call Dooley’s name for fear it alert any felon to his presence, yet nervous of the silence. Cautious as a cat on broken glass he crept through the flat, but each room was deserted. At the apartment door, which let on to the hallway in which he had first seen the figure, he paused. Where had Dooley gone? The man had apparently disappeared from sight.

Then, a groan from beyond the door.

“Dooley?” Boyle ventured. Another groan. He stepped into the hallway. Three more doors presented themselves, all were closed; other flats, presumably. On the coconut mat at the front door lay Dooley’s truncheon, dropped there as if its owner had been in the process of making his escape. Boyle swallowed his fear and walked into the body of the hall. The complaint came again, close by. He looked around and up the stairs. There, on the half-landing, lay Dooley. He was barely conscious. A rough attempt had been made to rip his clothes. Large portions of his flabby lower anatomy were exposed.

“What’s going on, Dooley?” Boyle asked, moving up to the bottom of the stairs. The officer heard his voice and rolled himself over. His bleary eyes, settling on Boyle, opened in horror.

“It’s all right,” Boyle reassured him. “It’s only me.” Too late, Boyle registered that Dooley’s gaze wasn’t fixed on him at all, but on some sight over his shoulder. As he pivoted on his heel to snatch a glance at Dooley’s bugaboo a charging figure slammed into him. Winded and cursing, Boyle was thrown off his feet. He scrabbled about on the floor for several seconds before his attacker seized hold of him by jacket and hair and hauled him to his feet. He recognized at once the wild face that was thrust into his — the receding hairline, the weak mouth, the hunger — but there was much too he had not anticipated. For one, the man was naked as a babe, though scarcely so modesty endowed. For another, he was clearly aroused to fever pitch. If the beady eye at his groin, shining up at Boyle, were not evidence enough, the hands now tearing at his clothes made the assailant’s intention perfectly apparent.

“Dooley!” Boyle shrieked as he was thrown across the hallway. “In Christ’s name!

Dooley!”

His pleas were silenced as he hit the opposite wall. The wild man was at his back in half a heartbeat, smearing Boyle’s face against the wallpaper. Birds and flowers, intertwined, filled his eyes. In desperation Boyle fought back, but the man’s passion lent him ungovernable strength. With one insolent hand holding the policeman’s head, he tore at Boyle’s trousers and underwear, leaving his buttocks exposed.

“God…” Boyle begged into the pattern of the wallpaper. “Please God, somebody help me…” But the prayers were no more fruitful than his struggles. He was pinned against the wall like a butterfly spread on cork, about to be pierced through. He closed his eyes, tears of frustration running down his cheeks. The assailant left off his hold on Boyle’s head and pressed his violation home. Boyle refused to cry out. The pain he felt was not the equal of his shame.