Certain Danger Read online

  Sidling up to her as soon as she was out the station doors, he asked her for a comment; demanded she confirm the story she had told the police.

  When she didn’t respond, instead just walking away with eyes fixed forward and her handbag held tight in front of her, he tried flattery. Telling her how beautiful she was and how his readers would love to see some photos of her. “It would be easy enough to arrange, you know… Maybe you could get some modelling out of it.”

  Her own assessment of her looks ran to moderately pretty at best, to in the main just quite mousy. But right then, with her skin pale and her eyes red from crying, there was no way she looked remotely beautiful. Alice gave him a half smile and kept walking.

  There was a dread that he’d just keep following her all the way, but there must have been other witnesses back inside the police station. Ones who might be more willing to share their stories with his lascivious readers. Finally, giving up on her as utterly pointless, he trotted back towards the station. She was left to walk to Worcester Park by herself, only now she didn’t feel the heat. There was a chill to her and she wished she had a cardigan.

  The house she currently shared was empty, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good, as right then she didn’t know how she’d maintain any kind of conversation; and bad because it stuck her with her thoughts. It left her alone with the picture of Richie Clement’s torn open face.

  Her mind tried to make sense of it somehow, spun circles attempting to make her feel better. What she clung to was that he didn’t cry out. That she had screamed, but there hadn’t been a cry of shock or pain from him. There was just that one strange word, but even then it hadn’t sounded like he was in torment when uttering it.

  (What the hell had he been trying to say? Someone’s name? A place? The beginnings of his last will and testament?)

  So it was possible then that he hadn’t actually suffered, despite the gory way he’d died. Maybe the shock of it all had numbed his senses to what had happened, and those last few moments – those seconds, or however long the two of them stared at each other – were like a peaceful end for him. Was that possible? Was there a level of pain beyond which one felt no actual pain? She told herself there might just be and clung to that thought.

  But it still proved little comfort as she paced back and fore over the threadbare lounge carpet. Every time she blinked, she saw him again. And all she could wonder was what had happened to the rest of his face? The skin that should have covered the right side, where the hell had it gone? It had clearly got sheared off somewhere in the accident, but the police had told her that they hadn’t yet found it. They’d actually wondered if she could be of any help. Had she, for instance, seen a bloody half of a face flung from the crash? She hadn’t, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even though it was no help at all in calming her down, she kept trying to work out where it had gone. Had it flown through the air in front of her and she missed it? Or was it still caught in the car wreck somewhere?

  The most ghoulish theory that occurred to her was that he had been driving around like that before the crash. Somehow he’d lost his face and his girlfriend was too drunk (the police had already concluded that she was very, very drunk) to notice. But no, that was impossible. That was something from a horror movie. The police’s theory must be correct and eventually some officer – or maybe some unfortunate passer-by – was going to find that sheered off piece of epidermis. Then they were going to have nightmares like she was going to have nightmares.

  It was hard for her to stop moving. Outside was a balmy summer’s evening, but she stayed inside – moving back and fore, back and fore.

  “Calm yourself, Alice,” she said out loud, almost in a school teacher’s voice. “This isn’t good for you.”

  But none of her housemates were around for her to talk to, and if they had been, she wouldn’t have wanted to tell them about it.

  They’d ask her what had happened to his face and she didn’t know what had happened to his face.

  In the end, she took a pill. She’d already consumed half a bottle of red wine and so knew it wasn’t the smartest idea, but she needed sleep. And when she found sleep, she wanted it to be peaceful.

  She was going to have some nightmares, she’d already resigned herself to that, but maybe she could dull their intensity.

  It was a plan that sort of worked.

  That night, as she crashed finally to her bed, she didn’t dream of Richie Clement or his broken face.

  Instead, she dreamt of a little boy named Paul.

  If she were conscious, she would never have remembered Paul. Would never have acknowledged knowing him. Yet in that dream state, she not only knew him and knew his name, but she could recall times they spent together – playing and laughing, There was a familiarity to it all, as if she’d dreamt of him ten thousand times before – yet, strangely, never once managed to remember him when she woke up.

  Who was Paul?

  It was hard to define, but he was someone who meant something to her. He was a little boy who once upon a time she had loved.

  Paul stared up at her. A sturdy, round-faced schoolboy with apple cheeks and a chin that seemed to be perpetually scraped, just like his knees. The expression on his face, when he stared at her, was forever a pout. The degree of petulance seemingly the only thing which ever changed.

  In the dream, Alice (a younger, childhood version of Alice) and Paul seemed to be lost in the woods together. A wood that was slowly being consumed by the thickest, darkest fog. Fog that was almost a smog

  She could picture them bickering in the rising grey – him wanting to go one way and her another – but eventually they settled on the same direction. Hanging together for the moment anyway. Neither of them were happy with it, but it was like they were going to be rewarded for their cooperation.

  As the fog got thicker and thicker, an anxiety rose within her. But Paul, being Paul, found it funny.

  “Imagine, Alice,” he chortled, “how worried they’ll be when they can’t find us. Oh, the look on their faces! They’ll think we’ve run off, won’t they? Where shall we go? I’ve always liked the idea of Birmingham. It’s a big city, there’ll be lots of places to hide.”

  But that good humour didn’t rub off on her. Instead her fear started to affect him.

  They could both sense it. There was something else with them in the fog. That’s what it felt like. Something utterly huge. Bigger than any creature that had ever been on Earth before, including the blue whales.

  It was everywhere, all around them.

  Every direction they turned, this thing was there. They clutched each other, feeling suddenly like two children lost in the belly of a great beast. Consumed and digested before anyone had noticed they’d gone.

  There was no amusement at all from Paul now. Instead there was the dawning realisation and dreadful fear that nobody at all knew where they were. They were lost forever. Paul yelled out and Alice yelled out. The sound bouncing back from the fog.

  At least they had each other.

  Until, all of a sudden, they didn’t.

  His hand slipped out of hers, or maybe hers slipped out of his.

  Screaming she spun around, disorientated. Never in her life could she recall feeling so alone. Paul was gone. She couldn’t see him anywhere anymore.

  Vaguely she could hear him, although everything was muffled in the fog, but still she couldn’t see him.

  The branches snapped below her bare feet. Her toes were being cut open on brambles. Running desperately now – either towards something or from something, she couldn’t tell – her ankle nearly turning over in a divot.

  She couldn’t see him and her whole body was consumed by utter terror as she stumbled. Unending fear that she was alone out there, that the fog was going to consume her, that she’d never see anyone again.

  That Paul and she would never see each other again.

  And that made her angry. She was frequently angry with Paul, but the fact that
he was elsewhere in this fog – not at her side – just made her angriest of all.

  Then suddenly there he was.

  He was in front of her. But he wasn’t the pudgy little boy with the mischievous pout anymore.

  His body lay crumpled and broken on the autumnal leaves.

  Crying out, she yelled to him, but she could already see that it was hopeless.

  The something in the wood had got to him, it had hurt him.

  It had killed him!

  There was blood on his legs now where scrapes and bruises had once been. His arms were thrown back over his head in shock and desperation, and – most horribly of all – his head was turned around completely the wrong way. It was backwards to his body, like some monster had reached out and twisted it.

  She collapsed to her knees beside his body and screamed. Yelled at the top of her lungs, even though she knew no one was ever going to hear her in this mist.

  But then, as the grief took over her, Paul’s dead face turned in her direction.

  She didn’t delude herself that he was actually alive. No, instead she screamed out with everything she had.

  But not loud enough to stop her hearing that one word he uttered in a deep adult voice that wasn’t his.

  “Marscht.”

  Chapter Three

  The next morning she told Geoff about what she’d seen. And then, as the words poured out of her, she told him of her dream.

  For lack of a better word, Geoff was her boyfriend. Although neither of them had ever defined themselves in those terms. He was all about taking things easy and casual, and that suited her fine. Long ago she’d learned that it was better to enjoy the moment than try to plan the future. He was older than her, fifteen years or so – as such he must have been approaching forty now. But there was no way you’d look at Geoff and think of a forty-year-old. No way you’d speak to him and think him such an old man. His outfit always consisted of jeans and a Grateful Dead t-shirt (another band she’d never really listened to, despite his best attempts) and he had a long ponytail which trailed down his back. Once upon a time, he told her, he’d had a job as a medical researcher. Long hours and lots of stress, until he decided that the rat race really wasn’t for him. Now he worked in a small record shop in New Malden, playing his favourite albums all day long over the stereo and chatting with other blokes who loved popular music. He was clearly delightfully happy and she admired that he’d managed to find his true path.

  The two of them had met in The Huntsman’s Hall pub, right by Worcester Park train station. His group of friends were hanging out on the next table to her group of friends. They’d started talking and all of them had hit it off – however Alice and Geoff had particularly hit it off. She always hated it when blokes just talked at her. When they obviously fancied her, but rather than get to know her, they just went on and on about themselves as if egomania was the sexiest come on of all. Geoff wasn’t like that. He took the time to actually listen. Right from the start he had wanted to know about her and her life, and that had meant a lot. Besides which, he had a great smile, a great bum and a fantastic energy. If it didn’t make her sound too tragically unhip herself, he seemed really with it.

  It was three months later and they were still seeing each other. She wouldn’t have described him aloud as her boyfriend – but he was her mate, her confidant, the person she was going to turn to when she was troubled.

  If he was surprised – after she’d filled him in as quickly as she could about the accident – that what Alice really wanted to talk about was her dream, then he didn’t show it. Even though he was the one person she knew who would absolutely have heard of Richie Clement before yesterday (and had arrived with a copy of The Daily Mirror under his arm, with a photo of both singer and girlfriend prominently on the front page), he still didn’t dwell on her tragic brush with celebrity. Holding her close, he didn’t bombard her with questions. He just let her take the lead.

  She’d crumpled into his arms as soon as she saw him. It was the following morning and she’d summoned him with a tearful phone call. (Lord knows what he’d told work, but right then she didn’t care.) Although they were still at the stage of charging straight to the bedroom whenever they saw each other, this time was obviously different. Fully dressed, she lay her head on his chest and wept inconsolably. And because he knew how to be with her, he just stroked his hand through her hair and let her get to everything at her own pace.

  “I told you that my childhood wasn’t very settled, didn’t I?” she said finally.

  She felt him nod once.

  “I’ve no idea who my dad was and my mum – as far as I can tell – was on the game most of her adult life. On the game and pissed and unhappy. The world’s worst example of a mother. She drank herself to death when I was seven, and after that I was in homes and with foster families. I had nowhere properly to call home, I’ve never had any people to call mine.”

  Geoff squeezed her shoulder. “I know, I know, it sounds so awful – Dickensian even.” He always spoke quietly unless there was music on. Should there be no background noise, his voice rarely got above a whisper. Sometimes it was sexy and sometimes it was sympathetic, but he always seemed to know which tone to use.

  “It was absolutely often absolutely dreadful. Some of the places I was put were proper shitholes, with foster mum and dads who took an immediate dislike to me and couldn’t be bothered to hide it. And then there were fathers who would try and get that bit too friendly. There were bad times. Genuinely frightening moments I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But there was a few good places too, there were oases of okay amongst all the rubbish.”

  “I just feel bad that you were all alone, Alice. That no one was looking out for you.”

  “I looked out for myself. Knowing how to do that is the best life lesson one can have.”

  Geoff stroked his hand gently through her hair and she nearly choked on tears.

  Her voice was getting quieter too now, and that little bit slower. She wanted to choose each word carefully, determined to say everything the way she wanted to say it.

  “When I think back on it now, most of the places I was sent to roll into one. There are some good ones which stand out, and some bad ones which haunt me – but a lot of the others, they could be anywhere and it could be anybody who was supposed to be looking after me. I don’t really remember them. But there was one time that was different. There was a time when I wasn’t in a council home or placed with any family. Instead I was in some kind of hospital. A clinic, I guess. It was a big house out in the countryside. Miles from anywhere, it seemed. I can remember thinking it had been built at the end of the world. I’m trying as hard as I can to work it out, but I don’t know why I was there and don’t really remember what happened to me while I was there. Yet I know it wasn’t normal.”

  “What do you mean? How wasn’t it normal?”

  She ignored his question, for now. “There was this boy there as well. Paul, his name was. And I thought I’d forgotten all about him, but suddenly I remember him again. The dream I had last night was so clear. Paul was a bit younger than me. Although being a bit younger than me didn’t stop him from trying to bully me. We were friends after a fashion, I suppose. Then one day, he disappeared.”

  “Right,” Geoff said, nodding again. His tone was a little lost, and really she couldn’t blame him.

  “I think he was in the clinic with me and that whatever tests they were running on me, they were also running on him. I can’t be sure. The thing is – and I’m struggling to piece together just what it was – something happened to him in that clinic.” She reached up her hand and pinched her eyes, trying – too late – to hold back the tears. “I think something really bad happened to him. That he might have even died there and that I saw it. Or at least I saw his body. It was me who discovered it. I don’t remember any investigation or any trial or anything like that, but I can remember he died. He died violently and horribly, and no one paid any attention. It seems to me now like
I’m the only one who has remembered him and even I forgot about him for the longest time!”

  The fingers to her eyes were useless as a dam and she dissolved into full-blown, wrenching sobs again. Geoff held her tightly and stroked her hair, soothing her, but letting her get it all out.

  Finally she calmed a little, still shaking but managing to suppress even a whimper.

  He said, “How old were you when all this happened?”

  “I don’t know, but I was young. Nine or ten. Something like that, perhaps.”

  “And you don’t know exactly what happened to him?”

  “No, but I know it was something awful. I saw it again last night and realised that I’ve been dreaming about him for a long time. It’s been buried inside me for most of my life. But I remember it now. It’s as clear in my mind as if it all happened yesterday.”

  “Alice.” His voice was soft and delicate, as if planning to tread forward with utmost care. “What you actually saw yesterday was shocking. It was bound to upset you, it’s clearly going to bring some stuff up. But once some time passes…”

  “No!” She raised up and looked into his soft brown eyes. In the last three months she had never cut him off, never corrected him so forcefully. “Yesterday was a car accident. It was bizarre and horrible the way it happened, but I know what I saw. This thing with Paul, though, I don’t know what it was. All I know is that something equally terrible happened – worse even, the death of a child – and it’s going to hang over me until I work out what it was.”

  “Okay, okay.” He lowered his voice even further, soothing her as best as he could. “How can I help you then? What can we do about it?”

  “The clinic,” she said. “I remembered what it was called. Last night, it came to me – it was named The Butterfly Clinic!”

  The certainty in her tones clearly surprised him. “The Butterfly Clinic at the end of the world,” he mused. “Do you have any idea where it might be in reality?”