Neil White - LOST SOULS

When Sam got back to his office, he sank back into his chair and shut his eyes for a moment. It was the old moral question, the one he tried to avoid. How could he defend a killer? The answer was easy: the judicial process would decide how to treat him. It was a cop-out, an excuse, but it was the only thing that helped Sam sleep. When he ever did.

But what happened when his client said he would do it again? That wasn’t in the script. Sam had the power to stop it. The Law Society rules allowed him to breach client confidentiality if someone’s life was at stake. He rubbed his hands over his face. He knew he couldn’t do it. Luke King wasn’t an ordinary client. And that sickened him.

Sam still had his eyes closed when he heard his door click open. When he opened them, he saw Harry standing there.

Sam wasn’t surprised. Although Harry never came to his office—he called Sam to his—Sam guessed that Luke’s case might make a few things different around here.

‘Something wrong?’ asked Sam.

Harry shook his head. ‘I was just passing when I saw you.’ He tried to look casual, but Harry Parsons didn’t do casual. ‘How did it go with Luke?’

Sam saw Alison looking into the room.

‘He’s still got his liberty, if that’s how we measure these things,’ Sam said.

Harry didn’t answer, so Sam played him at his own game. A few seconds passed before Harry spoke.

‘Tell me what happened.’

Sam sat forward and rubbed his eyes, and then he told Harry all about Egan getting frisky, seeing a big name, a headline.

‘So is he out now?’ Harry asked.

Sam nodded. ‘He’s got to go back, but he knows that Egan will be watching him.’

Harry stayed quiet for a moment, his eyes down, thinking, and then he nodded. ‘Thank you for looking after him,’ he said, and then turned to walk away.

As Harry was about to leave the room, Sam shouted after him. ‘If he is taken in again, I don’t want to act for him.’

Harry turned back round, and Sam noticed that his cheeks were flushed. ‘Why ever not?’

Sam tried to think of a way to answer that sounded reasonable, but there wasn’t one.

‘I just don’t, that’s all.’

Harry was about to respond when there was a light tap on the door. It was Karen, Sam’s secretary. She looked nervous.

‘Excuse me, Mr Parsons,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘Sam, there’s someone to see you. He’s in reception.’

‘Has he made an appointment?’

She shook her head. ‘He says it’s urgent. He’s been hanging around the office all day.’

Harry turned to walk out. ‘Stick with it, Sam,’ he said quietly, ‘for all our sakes.’

And then he left the room. As he went, Sam saw that Alison was still outside his office, but as Harry passed her, she turned and walked away.

For all our sakes. What the hell did he mean by that? Sam didn’t know, but he was sure he had seen something in Harry’s eyes he hadn’t seen before. Fear.

The old man had been seated in a room by the time Sam got there. It was one of the older interview rooms, with woodchip and ancient desks, not for the best clients.

Sam was hit by the smell as soon as he walked in. It was as if the old man had slept in his clothes for days, a musty mix of sweat and damp. From the back, Sam saw straggly grey hair over a dirty old grey overcoat, tide-marks along the collar. As he went around the desk, Sam recognised him straightaway. It was the old man who had been staring up at his window that morning.

Sam sat down in front of him.

The old man was in a chair without arms, and he looked vulnerable, scared. His knees were together, his hands over them, and he looked defensive. Under his coat he wore a shirt, but it looked creased, as if he had found his only clean one under a heap of others and made a special effort. There was a film of grey bristles over his cheeks, and his dark-rimmed glasses were held together by tape over the bridge. His eyes had once been bright blue, Sam could tell that much, but now they looked tired, ringed by dark circles.

Sam didn’t try to put him at ease. The old man had been watching him all day, and Sam wanted answers, although he wondered now how the old man had ever made him nervous.

‘Hello, my name is Sam Nixon. How can I help you?’ It came out brusque, unfriendly.

The old man looked surprised. He watched Sam for a moment, and then looked down. Sam realised that he’d just ruined the prepared speech.

‘My name is Eric Randle,’ he said quietly, his voice sounding hoarse, ‘and I have dreams.’

‘We all have dreams,’ Sam snapped back. He looked at his watch. At the moment this was all free of charge.

The old man ran his finger around his collar, and then said, ‘I dream of the future, and it comes true.’

Sam started to twirl his pen between his fingers, a habit he had when he wasn’t sure what to say.

‘I paint them,’ Eric continued. ‘My dreams, I mean.’ He shifted in his seat. Sam didn’t say anything. He just looked at the old man, let him talk.

‘I’ve always painted, since I was a child,’ Eric carried on, leaning forward in his seat, ‘but then I started getting these dreams, strong, vivid, violent dreams.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I knew they meant something, but I didn’t know what.’ He shrugged. ‘So I started painting them.’ He sat back and smiled, a nervous smile. ‘I paint my dreams, and then they come true.’

Sam tried not to smile with him. ‘What, you influence the future?’ He put his pen down. ‘I saw it in a film once. Richard Burton. Medusa something.’

‘No, no,’ Eric said, his eyes wide now. ‘You don’t understand.’ The old man took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. ‘These aren’t normal dreams. These wake me up, and I’m crying sometimes. I know I’ve seen something terrible, something that will kill people, but I can’t do anything about it.’

‘What kind of things?’

Eric began to clench his jaw, his eyes distant. ‘Disasters, murders. I’ve seen plane crashes, earthquakes, bombings. And I can’t do anything about it, because I don’t know when it’s going to happen, or where.’ He looked back at Sam, his eyes almost pleading. ‘Sometimes I’m too scared to go back to sleep. So I get up, no matter what time of night it is. I get up and paint my dreams. And then they come true.’ He wiped his eyes. They looked damp, his lip trembling. And I know all the time that I could have stopped it, if I’d just known more.’

Eric looked at Sam expectantly, as if he suddenly thought that Sam might have an answer. But Sam had his mind on something else.

‘Why have you been following me today?’ asked Sam.

Eric sat bolt upright and wiped his eyes, looking more focused. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a roll of paper. ‘I painted this a few months ago,’ he said.

He passed it over, barely rising from his seat; Sam had to lean over the desk to get it.

Sam unrolled it carefully. It wasn’t cheap paper. It felt thick, luxurious, not the glossy white of office paper. It seemed completely at odds with the man’s appearance.

It wasn’t a painting as he expected it. It was more of a collection of jottings, of images. There was no structure, no form, but the images immediately got his interest. Sam could tell the old man had talent. The human figures were drawn with swift lines, almost scribbled, and the colours overran, but the figures had astonishing movement, action.

It was the image in the middle that drew Sam’s attention. It came at him like a shot of adrenaline, recognisable straightaway. It was a woman, petite, young, tied to a chair. There was something hanging from her neck, like a rope, and her chest and face were painted bright red, with crosses over her eyes. Sam hadn’t seen the pictures from the scene of the murder, but he had heard Egan describe it over and over during the interview as he tried to rattle Luke.