Face of Evil Read online

  “Let me,” says the doctor, pouring her a glass and bringing it to her cracked lips. She drinks greedily, feeling the life force flowing back into her as she does so.

  “Thank you,” she croaks.

  “You’re welcome.” The doctor sets the glass back down. “So you don’t remember anything?”

  “I remember getting hit on the back of the head,” says Lydia. She can feel the dull throb now from the site of the wound. “Then… I don’t know.” She looks around again, her eyes processing more details as they acclimatise. The floor tiles are off-white and dirty. Flies congregate in the corners of the room. There are six beds, but only one opposite is occupied, by an old lady who seems to be asleep. Lydia hopes she is asleep. “Where am I?”

  “Still at Mortem,” says the doctor. “In the medical wing. Doctor Engel thought it best to bring you inside and warm you up rather than wait for an ambulance. Besides, you’re not too badly hurt. You’ll have a nasty bruise, a hefty bump and a cracking headache for a while, but you’ll live.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She had to go home to her children. But she’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

  “I should…” Lydia tries to get up, but the doctor lays a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  “You should get some rest,” he says. “A nurse will bring you something to eat, and then you need to sleep. We can’t just let you go home after a bang on the head like that.” He smiles, and Lydia notices how young he looks. Late twenties, maybe, with wavy, dark brown hair and large, dark green eyes. She feels a warmth within her, not enough to thaw her frozen core but sufficient to reassure her that this man means her no harm.

  “Okay,” she mumbles sleepily, letting her head fall back onto the pillow. “Thank you, doctor.” She listens as his footsteps fade and disappear into the asylum’s long, winding corridors. Her headache intensifies, and with each painful thump inside her head she visualises the blood pumping violently through every vein, every artery in her body. The throbbing agony echoes inside of her, bouncing back and forth over itself and building to a crescendo of searing torture. She opens her mouth to scream, but there is something else now beyond the rhythmic drum of pain. Another sound. More footsteps. Is the doctor back so soon? With a soft wail she lifts her head and shoulders from the bed and faces the door.

  Alex bursts into the room, his old, worn leather jacket flapping behind him, clutching a raggedy bunch of daffodils in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other. “Lydia!” he says, breathlessly, as he catches sight of her and makes a beeline for the bed. “Jesus, Lydia! Are you alright?”

  “What are you doing here?” Lydia’s voice slides from surprise to anger over the course of the question as her pounding head evokes the fresh memory of creeping from Alex’s room that morning.

  “They just called me,” he replies, somewhat taken aback by her hostility. “I came to make sure you’re alright.”

  “I bet you did,” she hisses, falling back onto the bed.

  “What does that mean?” Alex asks. Lydia can hear the hurt in his voice and it just makes her angrier. You are not the victim here, she thinks.

  “It means you don’t have to act like you’re my boyfriend or something just because we slept together.” Lydia keeps her eyes closed. It’s easier to say what she feels if she doesn’t have to look at him. “I don’t need protecting, and I sure as shit don’t need those.” She waves a hand at the flowers.

  “Woah, woah,” says Alex softly, as though soothing a skittish horse, “Lydia, we didn’t sleep together.”

  “What do you mean?” She squints at him.

  “I mean you were too drunk to remember the name of your hotel, so you came back to mine and passed out on my bed.” He takes a cautious step forward and lays the flowers gently at the foot of the bed. “You don’t remember?”

  “I…” Lydia tries to remember, but inside her head it’s so loud. “But you were…” She glares at him.

  “Oh,” he says sheepishly, looking down at the ground. “Well, it’s only a small place, you know, I don’t have a spare room and the couch is too small to sleep on, so…”

  “Nothing happened?” Lydia asks. She wants to believe him.

  “Nothing, I swear.”

  “You better not be lying.”

  “Hey, you’re the expert,” Alex says somewhat defensively. “If I were lying, you’d be able to tell, right?”

  Lydia looks him right in the eyes, and Alex looks right back, and after a long moment she seems to decide that he’s telling the truth. Or at least that she’s prepared to believe it, for now.

  “So what happened to you?” he asks. “The girl who called said you slipped on the ice?”

  “I didn’t slip,” Lydia snaps. “Somebody hit me.”

  “What?!”

  “I dropped my keys…” Lydia grimaces as she tried to remember. “And when I bent down to pick them up, somebody hit me on the back of the head.” She leans forward and turns her head to show him the injury. “See?”

  “But who would—”

  “Jason,” Lydia says, so quickly that she surprises even herself.

  “But…” Alex says gently, “he’s—”

  “Locked up, I know,” she says, impatiently. “He didn’t actually do it. I don’t even think he’s causing all of this. But it has something to do with him, I know it does.” Lydia squirms as though trying to sit up, and Alex places a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “What about Cecil Sprinkler? Did you find—”

  “Nothing,” Alex replies, quietly. “We’re having the blood tested in that thing you found, but it’s going to take a while.”

  Lydia sighs and thumps her head back against the pillow. “I won’t be able to sleep, Alex. I need to do something.”

  “Here,” says Alex, laying the box of chocolates next to her. “Eat these.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lydia replies sarcastically, “a rush of sugar and endorphins is just what I need right now.” She pushes the box away and closes her eyes, missing the fleeting look of disappointment on Alex’s face.

  “Alright,” he says quietly after a moment, “I’ll go and speak to that doctor. Then tomorrow you’re coming to stay with me until we’ve figured this out.”

  “I told you I don’t need protecting. I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “Evidently.”

  “Don’t be…” Lydia begins, trying to sit up again.

  “No arguments,” says Alex, touching her wrist this time. The touch of skin on skin sends a shock that pierces Lydia’s consciousness and immediately clears the fog engulfing her brain. “Your safety is the most important thing here.”

  Lydia looks up into his kind eyes, and then quickly away for fear that he will see the truth in hers. “Whoever did this obviously doesn’t want me dead,” she says. “They wanted to make a point.”

  “What point?”

  “You’d have to ask Jason, I guess.”

  “But he’s—”

  “I KNOW.” Lydia winces again as the reverberations inside her own head from her raised voice set it thumping again. She hears a buzzing sound and wonders for a moment whether her blood might be pounding so hard that it is making the bed itself vibrate. Then she opens her eyes and sees Alex retrieving something from his coat pocket. A pager.

  “I have to go,” he says, frustrated. “I’ll see the doctor on my way out and be back as soon as I can.”

  “Alright.”

  “Save me a caramel,” he says, smiling, already halfway to the door.

  “I won’t,” Lydia replies shortly, feeling around for the chocolates she rejected a moment ago. Then she laughs at her own childishness and looks up to see if Alex is laughing too. But the room is empty.

  *

  Hours later, Lydia is still awake and more agitated than ever. She picks her phone up from the bed next to her and then sets it down again. She has already been in touch with Donna to let her know what’s happened. Alex
sent a few texts just to check in, but she figured he must have long since fallen asleep. There is nobody else in the world that she can tell, who might care, about what has happened. Lydia is used to solitude. She has fashioned her life around it. Fashioned herself around it. But now it bothers her, and she can’t figure out why.

  Mostly as a distraction, she makes a list in her head, a plan for what she is going to do when she gets out of here. As the list grows, and the complexities multiply, she picks up her phone again and starts writing it down, thick, crimson nails tapping on the glass like an agitated bird pecking at a window.

  “For God’s sake, child, will you please go to sleep already?” Lydia jumps. She drops the phone, and in its glow glint two small, black eyes peering at her from across the room. The elderly lady was alive after all.

  “I’m sorry,” says Lydia, “I didn’t know you were…” Alive? “Awake.”

  “How could I not be with you flapping and tapping over there?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lydia repeats, sounding more annoyed than apologetic. She isn’t used to sharing space with people. It bothers her. “It’s not like I want to be here, I got hit over the head and—”

  “Oh yes, you’ve had a rough day,” says the old woman, sarcastically. “I heard all about it when you were complaining to your poor boyfriend.”

  “My…” It takes Lydia a moment to realise who she means. “He’s not my boyfriend, he’s a detective.”

  “Oh, okay.” The woman laughs a wheezing laugh. “Lots of detectives bring you flowers and chocolates, do they?”

  “We went to school together,” says Lydia defensively, picking up her phone to resume her task. “That’s all.”

  “If you say so, sweetheart.”

  “I have to finish this, if you don’t mind,” says Lydia coldly.

  “But I do mind,” says the woman, sitting up a little and rolling her weight to one side. “There’s a time to work and a time to sleep, you know.”

  “Well, I’m always working,” Lydia snaps.

  “Ooooh!” says the woman. Lydia can’t see her mouth in the darkness, but her eyes are sneering. “Think you’re special, do you? What kind of work is that you’re doing?”

  “I’m a writer,” says Lydia flatly. “My name’s Lydia Tune.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “Well as devastating as that is,” says Lydia, “I still have to get this done.”

  “Of course you do,” says the woman, her thin, nasty voice wearing on Lydia’s every nerve. “I’m sure it’s very important.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” she snaps.

  “Oh, but I do,” the woman whispers. “I used to be you.”

  “Shall I summon the nurse?” Lydia asks sharply. “Clearly you’re in need of a little something to settle your nerves.”

  “Listen you tight-arsed, control freak little bitch,” the woman spits, “you think you’re so clever, but you don’t even realise that nobody gives a shit about you or your precious work.”

  “Nurse!” Lydia cries out in a strangled voice.

  “And you don’t give a shit about them either,” the woman carries on undeterred. “Oh you can take your mind off it with work or whatever other crap you tell yourself is important, but you can’t stop the clock. One day it’s going to catch up with you, and all you’ll have to show for your petty life is a stack of pointless old books and a sack of regrets weighing you down. One day real soon.”

  “Nurse!” Lydia calls again, louder this time.

  “Don’t bother,” says the woman. “I’m done. And besides,” her eyes disappear as she falls back onto the bed. “Nobody can hear you anyway. Take it from someone who knows.”

  Lydia’s phone goes dark, and a chill creeps up her spine that will hold its icy grip on her until the sun rises. She closes her eyes and feels exhaustion begin to overwhelm her, her consciousness drifting against its will, fighting like a fish caught on a line. Eventually she succumbs to sleep, but not to rest. Until this mystery is solved, there will be no rest.

  Twenty-Three

  Best Laid Plans

  Lydia stands before a mirror in the cold, grey ward, fully dressed. She tries to summon her usual, confident smile but those crimson lips remain mutinously unturned. Even her own body, it seems, has lost faith in her. She glances over to the elderly woman, now sound asleep. She looks peaceful, kindly even. For a moment Lydia wonders whether she imagined their conversation. Perhaps whatever drugs the doctor administered had caused her to have a vivid nightmare. She raises her phone and taps to check her notes. The to-do list is there, just as she wrote last night. She looks up into the eyes of her own reflection. Are they… afraid?

  “You’ve been given the all clear.”

  Lydia whips around to find Alex standing in the doorway. He looks tired, but smiles as she meets his gaze. “Did you speak to Doctor Engel?” Lydia asks.

  “Some nurse,” says Alex. “Said the doc’s on her morning rounds.” He walks over to Lydia’s bed and picks up her bag. “Shall we go?”

  “Not yet.” Lydia snaps her lipstick closed and checks her hair in the mirror one last time. “I need to see him first.”

  “See who?”

  “Jason,” says Lydia, snatching her bag from Alex on her way to the door, heels clicking against the cold floor with each long, purposeful stride.

  “Now wait a second,” says Alex, chasing after her, “I don’t think you’re in any condition to be—”

  “Oh, are you a doctor now too?” she asks, without slowing down.

  “You can’t just go barging in there.”

  “Who’s going to stop me?” She glances at him over her shoulder. “You?”

  “Hold on,” Alex pleads, reaching out to grab her arm. “This isn’t you.”

  “Oh really?” She stops and spins around, jerking her arm out of his grasp. “Who is it?”

  “I mean…” Alex scrambles for the right words, “without a plan. Do you even know what you’re going to say?”

  “I’m a smart woman, Alex,” says Lydia, setting off down the corridor again. “I’m sure I’ll manage to put some words in an appropriate order.”

  “You’re being emotional.”

  She shoots him a withering look.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Alex says, frustrated. “Look, this isn’t what you would usually do.”

  “I wouldn’t usually get beaten around the head in a car park either,” she snaps, “but it happened and I’m going to find out why.”

  “Fine,” Alex says loudly, sprinting to get ahead of her and block the corridor. “Fine, okay, if that’s what you want.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your approval, Alex,” says Lydia shortly. “Please get out of my way.”

  “I will when you tell me what your plan is.”

  Lydia glares at him, but she’s more annoyed with herself for not having an answer.

  “Listen,” says Alex, holding up his hands in an appeasing fashion, “one of the guards here is an old friend of mine.”

  “A friend?” Lydia raises an immaculately-pencilled eyebrow.

  “Well, acquaintance,” says Alex, sheepishly. “Whatever, why don’t you let me talk to him? Maybe I can work something out.”

  “Like what?” Lydia asks, half curious, half incredulous.

  “You have your ways,” he grins, “I have mine.” She stares at him with a mixture of scepticism and irritation. “Look,” he says, “if I can’t stop you, at least let me help you. Okay?”

  “I can handle myself,” she remarks, pulling away.

  A long-frustrated sigh bellows from Alex’s chest, “Fine.” He suddenly smiles with what appears to be a thought. “I’ll see you later.”

  Before Lydia can add anything, he turns away and starts walking down the corridor with what is unmistakably a swagger in his step. She stares, open-mouthed, wondering why, and then leaves to go and see Jason.

  Twenty-Four

  Cat and Mouse

  Ni
ghtmares lurk within the shadows that haunt every corner of this high, grey room. A small window far out of reach allows the sun’s tired rays to spill over its three, thick bars and cast down a spotlight upon a single cell, a cell in the centre of several others that remain empty and embedded into the old cracking grey walls. This one cell was purposed to contain the mad dog serial killer and his meagre furnishings: bed, toilet, and a pale blue yoga mat, the scene’s only colour. Jason Devere, in loose grey pants and vest, angles his body into a perfect downward dog, heels flat, arms straight, flexed muscles remembering their old strength.

  “I told you I keep my word,” says a woman’s voice above him. Jason’s torso flattens to the mat in an instant, back arched, head raised like a cobra ready to strike. “So this is your place, huh?”

  “It’s just like the Ritz,” he growls softly. “I guess I forgot to hang that ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door.”

  “Funny you should mention privacy,” Lydia says, stepping right up to the cell and laying her hands upon its cold, steel bars. “The other day, you asked me if I ever felt like I’m being watched.”

  “Yeah,” Jason replies, slowly raising to his feet. For the first time, she realises how tall he is. A powerful figure. “So?”

  “Tell me why.”

  Jason just stands for a moment, watching her with his piercing eyes, head slightly tilted. He’s only a few feet away. If he lunges now, she probably won’t be able to react in time. Every fibre of Lydia’s being is screaming for her to get away, to run, but her brain warns her not to back down, not to show weakness, and Lydia’s brain always wins.

  “Just making conversation,” says Jason finally.

  “You’re lying,” says Lydia quickly. “Why did you say it?”

  Jason approaches her slowly. “The real question is,” he says quietly, his bright eyes locked on hers, “why you didn’t listen?” He’s almost at the bars now, within reach. Lydia lets go and begins to pace slowly in front of the cell, the click of her long heels echoing up to the ceiling high above, past thin metal walkways where guards are perched silently like bats in the rafters of an old mansion.