Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘I’ve seen things,’ Kane doggedly maintained, ‘I’ve experienced things… crazy things. I’ve felt this energy, this sense of…of connectedness …’

‘Just chemicals,’ she pointed to his head. ‘Up here. Too much coffee. Too many hormones. Too much sugar…’

‘But other people have felt it, too…’

‘Then a kind of joint hysteria…’

‘No.’ Kane shook his head.

‘We’re all raised to think we’re so special,’ Peta scoffed, ‘that all our experiences are so important, so meaningful, so particular , so individual. But if you look at the work of the confidence trickster, the magician, the psychic — even the priest , for that matter — what they depend on — how they function— is to play on the universality of human experience, on how bland, how predictable, how homogenous we all really are…’

‘But what if I’ve discovered things — or seen things — which are completely beyond my range of possible experience. Stuff about the past. Stuff about…’

‘You were telling yourself a story. You were weaving a spell. You were making all the parts fit. You were feeding into a general energy, a universal energy. You were probably adhering to a basic archetype — a “first model” as the Ancient Greeks would have it — something like…’ she shrugged, ‘he’s threatened by his father, he loved his mother, he’s terrified of death…or maybe something more intellectual, more esoteric like…I don’t know…like the idea of this disparity between fire and water,’ she pulled a moronic face, ‘or the absurd idea that language has these gaps in it and that lives can somehow just tumble through…’

‘That was Beede’s idea,’ Kane interrupted her. ‘You said it was a good idea before. You liked it.’

‘Nah. I probably just said what I needed to,’ she shrugged, ‘so we’d both end up here.’

Kane took a step back from her. ‘You’re a class act,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll give you that.’

‘You seriously believe I’m behind all this?’ Peta grinned. ‘You honestly think that I have the energy — the means —to bring this all together? That I’m some kind of a conduit? Some kind of…’

‘But why not?’ Kane demanded. ‘It’s your story too, isn’t it?’

‘I’m flattered,’ Peta chuckled, ‘touched, even.’ She paused. ‘And perhaps I was an unwitting midwife to something,’ she conceded, ‘but if I was, then it was something that was already born. Because everything already exists. It’s all there for the taking. But we never actually take it all. We just choose the little bits we need to further our agenda. And why shouldn’t we? Because it doesn’t serve our purpose to see the whole picture. And the parts that we do see? The parts that we do discover? They’re often the same parts. And how we keep it fresh is that we constantly recreate them, then conveniently forget them, then suddenly rediscover them anew, own them anew…’

‘Maybe,’ Kane said. He didn’t seem entirely convinced.

‘It was never about the tiles, Kane,’ Peta sighed. ‘It was only ever about Beede and what he felt. Or maybe — more to the point — what he couldn’t feel.’

‘Perhaps you underestimate him,’ Kane maintained. ‘Perhaps Beede actually knew something — all along — that you didn’t.’

Peta merely shrugged. She glanced down at her watch, then looked up. ‘The Commissar is just about to overheat,’ she announced.

Kane peered over towards the car. He saw a tiny plume of steam ascending from the bonnet.

‘Balls,’ he cursed.

‘Just as the traffic starts to shift,’ she groaned. ‘Would you believe it?’

She leaned down and grabbed something from the van’s front passenger seat. It was a large bottle of water. She handed it to him. ‘He’ll take twenty minutes to cool down,’ she said, ‘and give it five, at least, before you risk unscrewing the radiator cap.’

Kane took the bottle and started walking, backwards, towards the car. ‘I’m not finished with you,’ he yelled.

‘Yes you are.’

She switched on her indicator, and slowly overtook. Kane was reaching — anxiously — into the steaming engine as the van drew past. He glanced up. He saw her lips moving. He heard her mutter something — a parting shot. And it was either, ‘Take care not to burn your hands’ or ‘Take care of your surgeon’s hands…’ Either one or the other. He couldn’t tell which. But after she’d spoken, he saw her head tip back, and he could’ve sworn he heard a sharp, cruel cackle — a chuckle, a chortle —as if she’d actually just said something totally hysterical.

‘Beede?’ Dory was muttering. ‘Beede? Beede? Are you still with me?’ Beede was sitting on a bench in a stationary ambulance, clutching on to the feather as if his life depended on it. Dory was lying on a stretcher beside him. He was bleeding heavily. His shattered head had been fitted with some kind of padded helmet and he’d been heavily sedated.

‘Dory?’ Beede leaned over towards him. ‘It’s Beede. I’m here. I’m right beside you.’

He tried to grab Dory’s hand, but his free arm was too heavy to lift. He shuffled a little further forward instead, wincing as he moved. One of the two ambulancemen gave him a warning look but Beede ignored him.

‘Dory?’ he repeated. ‘I’m here, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.’

Dory’s blue eyes fluttered open. ‘Is he gone, Beede?’ he gasped. ‘Is it finally done with?’

Beede considered this question, carefully. ‘Yes,’ he said, glancing nervously over his shoulder, ‘I’m sure he is. I’m sure it must be.’

‘Oh thank God,’ Dory panted, smiling. ‘Oh thank…’

Then his eyes suddenly widened. ‘Sm… smoke …’ he coughed. His voice sounded hoarse again.

The second ambulanceman gave Dory some oxygen. ‘Just try and stay still,’ he advised him. ‘We’ll soon be on our way…’

He glanced over at Beede. ‘There’s a terrible traffic jam,’ he explained, ‘because of a huge fire on one of the local estates. An entire street went up, apparently.’

Dory tried to knock his oxygen mask away. ‘What’s happening?’ he gasped. He tried to lift his arms, to sit up, but they were strapped down too tightly.

‘You’re in an ambulance, Dory,’ Beede told him. ‘You’re going to hospital. You’re going to be…’

The ambulance jolted forward. Its siren began wailing. Beede winced again.

‘But I need to…’ Dory’s eyes were starting, his temples were pulsing. ‘I must …’

‘Calm down,’ Beede tried his best to soothe him, ‘just calm down and…’

‘S top …I need to…to…’

Dory gazed, in desperation, towards the ambulance’s back windows. ‘I need to stop …‘

‘Try and stay still,’ the second ambulanceman repeated. ‘You’re in shock. Try not to move your head around too much…‘

Beede glanced towards the windows himself.

‘ No . I must …I can’t …’ Dory continued to struggle.

‘We may need to sedate him further,’ the first ambulanceman murmured to his partner.

‘Can we really risk that?’ his partner murmured back.

‘ Tür,’ Dory suddenly wheezed, his hands struggling with the straps that bound him, ‘can’t…can’t… tür .’

‘Do you know what he’s saying?’ the first ambulanceman asked Beede.

‘He’s saying… uh …tür,’ Beede interpreted, slightly panicked. ‘I think that’s German for…for door…although…’ he frowned, confused, ‘although tier …it could be tier . That means an animal, or…or — more formally speaking — a breathing thing…’