Corbett’s mind kicked into gear as if a switch had been thrown somewhere in his head, one moment he was in a deep dreamless state, and the next instant he was wide awake. Before he even opened his eyes he knew something was wrong, like most heavy drinkers Jack Corbett was no stranger to awakening to a feeling of extreme anxiety, but this was something different. Grey morning light illuminated a room that had long since fallen into neglect, and the air in the room was thick and cloying with a stench of musty dampness. He was lying on a four-poster bed and the covers beneath him were damp and mildewed, a vision of things crawling through the moldy covers galvanized him off the bed. The floorboards creaked alarmingly beneath his feet, and an image of the floor collapsing beneath him terrified him. Moving as carefully as possible he crossed the room and moved the decrepit lace curtain one side, a quiet square surrounded by impressive houses stood deserted in the early morning rain.
Keeping to the edge of the room Corbett moved carefully towards the closed door, with each step the anxiety that the floor beneath him could give way at any moment intensified. He had awoken in many strange surroundings over the years of heavy drinking, but this place had to top the list. How the hell he had gotten here was beyond him, his head felt muzzy but the usual signs of a bender were absent. His throat did not feel parched and the taste of stale booze was also absent. The hallway outside the room was festooned with what looked like a century of cobwebs, an open door on the landing led to a large bathroom. Corbett relieved the fullness in his bladder in the age-stained toilet bowl, and when he pulled the chain to flush, the water was stained with rust and for a moment his mind associated it with blood. Corbett cleaned the grime from the full-length mirror mounted on the wall and stared at his reflection.
The faint outline of bruising that had healed surrounded his eyes, and the scar of a recent cut followed the line of his right eyebrow in the direction of his temple. He had been in some kind of scrape lately, but the injuries were all but healed. It came as a shock to him to see how he was dressed; he was clad in an expensive suit that he was sure he would not have paid for. The handmade loafers on his feet were an extravagance he would not have invested in, even in his most successful days. This thought seemed to jog something loose in his memory, and a small voice echoed in his mind. “You are Jack Corbett and you were once a successful reporter.” The voice heralded a return of something that he had been missing; Corbett suddenly had a feeling of self-awareness, but how he had managed to lose this he could not say. He left the bathroom and carefully picked his way down the stairs, the steps beneath him groaned alarmingly with his weight. The bottom hallway looked forlorn with its once expensive wallpaper faded and peeling. The kitchen appeared to be the only room that was resisting the advancing dereliction that the rest of the house had suffered.
This whole experience was beginning to take its toll on him, and he sat on one of the dust-coated kitchen chairs. Unconsciously his hand reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a pack of cigarettes and gold lighter, he had taken a few drags on the cigarette before a thought came to him. Corbett suddenly wondered when the hell he had started smoking again, as far as he could remember he had not smoked in over two years. Putting the cigarette out in the ashtray on the kitchen table, he noticed that some of the cigarette ends already there had lipstick on them. A vision of a blonde woman came to mind; he stopped and stared around the kitchen. Something was coming back to him, the memories were still disjointed but a name came to him, Sophia. The name coming to him triggered more hazy memories that he could not coherently connect, and it also brought on a wave of panic that galvanized him to his feet and out of the house. Something told him he had to get away from this decaying house, and he also knew that the woman called Sophia might be a threat to him.
The prim-looking woman at the bus stop eyed his expensive clothing with an incredulous expression, and Corbett found it necessary to explain again how he was mugged and had his wallet stolen. He could see she was far from convinced, and he treated her to a pleading smile. Eventually, she reached for her purse and dug out some coins, and handed them to him, before he could even thank her she had turned her back to him, signaling the fact that she wanted no more interaction with him. Thankfully the bus arrived moments later, and Corbett took a seat as far as possible from his reluctant benefactor. Corbett sat at the back of the bus staring out the window; his view was blurred by the rain running down the glass. It was this simple thing that started him remembering, he had gone to that square on a rainy morning to cover the story of a suicide. Slowly but surely his memories began to fall into place, but there were still blanks. Like what had taken place from the time he had left the bar, after speaking with Jones, and how he had ended up in that house wearing an expensive suit of clothes. Another thing that bothered him was the fact that his memory of the woman named Sophia was somewhat jumbled, one moment he had a clear image of a younger woman, and the next she was older.
The bus came to a halt in the city center and Corbett disembarked, he was still half a mile from where he had parked the car near the station, at least this was his last memory of being in the car. By the time he reached the beat-up old ford, he was wet through, and the rumbling in his stomach told him he had not eaten in a while. He found the spare key he always kept in a magnetic box on the inside of the back bumper, to his surprise the engine turned over the moment he turned the ignition key, and even though the needle indicated he was driving on empty he managed to make it back to the apartment. Parked outside the block of flats he felt the old familiar feeling of hopelessness, and it took an effort to get out of the car and enter the building. Once inside he felt even more dejected when he realized he would have to call Mabel for his spare key, he had a feeling that she was not his number one fan these days. Mabel was the only one to stand by him when he first hit rock bottom, she went from being a friendly neighbor to sometimes lover. But like everyone else she finally could not take his bullshit anymore, he had let her down once too often.
Corbett rang the doorbell and stepped back, it was taking all his willpower not to turn and run like a frightened child. Time seemed to drag on, however, he was reluctant to press the doorbell again, but he had little choice if he wanted to gain entrance to his flat. The moment his finger depressed the bell, the door opened and he jumped backward, half expecting a tirade of abuse. Mabel stood looking at him but instead of an expression of anger, she had a look of relief. “Jack, where the fuck have you been for the past few days?” She stood back and beckoned him inside, before closing the door and bolting it. Corbett sat silently at the kitchen table and watched her preparing something to eat, the smell of bacon frying made his mouth water. The domestic simplicity of the moment suddenly brought a wave of nostalgia over him, and he longed to go back to the time when they were lovers. Mabel wore a silk wrap that just came to the top of her shapely thighs, and a vision of making love to her flashed briefly across his mind. But that ship had well and truly sailed, and he had no one to blame but himself.
Mabel watched him devour the food with a worried look on her face; he had wolfed back the food like a man that had been starved. Only when he sat back in his chair did she speak. “Jack, are you in some kind of trouble? Your flat was broken into last night, and a detective called Jones has been around looking for you. He told me to tell you to get in touch with him as soon as I see you.” Corbett paused to let this sink in, before reassuring her that everything was okay. By the look on her face, he knew she did not believe him, and for that matter, he did not believe himself. Corbett was inclined to tell Mabel what he could remember of the events that occurred over the recent past, but he knew that none of it would make sense. He did not think it would be possible to tell anyone what had gone on without sounding deranged, because in his mind none of it made any sense. He had been living with a woman that had suddenly gotten younger, in a house that changed overnight from being a luxurious townhouse to a derelict shell. Or for that matter that he had burgled a dead man’s house for this woman, and she had repaid him by drugging him and running off in the night.
Eventually, Corbett settled on a story that he knew Mabel would believe, he told her he had spent the past few days on a drunken bender with a woman that he had met in a bar. He told her how he had woken up in a cheap hotel, and that the woman and his wallet were gone. For the briefest of moments, a look of hurt clouded her eyes, and he hated himself. But just as soon as that look on her face had appeared, it disappeared to be replaced by something harder. The earlier expression of concern was gone now, and he knew he had outstayed his welcome. Mabel got up and busied herself clearing the dishes, Corbett desperately searched for something to say that might lighten the mood but had to settle for muttered thanks for the meal. He was at the door when she called him, for some reason he felt an irrational hope that everything was suddenly going to be okay with them. He turned to find her holding out the spare key to his flat, in the same hand she held a twenty-pound note. “I don’t want the money back Jack and you might find someone else to hold your spare key.”
Corbett stood dejected in the hallway staring at the door she had closed behind him, the subtle scent of her shampoo hung in the air. A brief image flashed across his mind of one of the nights of passion he had spent in her arms, and at that moment he felt more alone than he had ever felt before. It seemed that everything he had touched in life had turned to shit, and he realized the world was increasingly becoming a place he did not want to live in. If his mood was low at that moment, things were about to get worse. The lock on the front door of his flat was broken beyond repair, and the place was completely thrashed. Every piece of paper including the manuscript of a book he had been working on was dumped in the middle of the sitting room floor, and a strange bad smell seemed to hang in the air. The mattress had been pulled from the bed and slit with a knife down the edges, and none of this made sense. Anyone who took even the most cursory of looks inside his flat would immediately recognize that he had nothing worth stealing. Anything of any value had long since been sold, or like his typewriter ended up in the pawnshop.
Whoever had turned the place over had spent a lot of time searching for something, and the only thing that made sense was they had gotten the wrong address. Corbett suddenly felt drained of any energy, and he jammed a chair behind the door before putting the mattress back on the bed and lying down. Within a couple of minutes, he had fallen into a troubled sleep, a sleep tormented with strange visions of a blonde woman that turned into a monster. It was getting dusk outside when he woke, and he could smell the sweat from his armpits. The cushions had been thrown from the sofa, and he found some coins that he put in the electric meter. He needed a hot shower before he sat down and tried to make sense of what was going on, and he was suddenly craving a drink. In the shower, he traced the pattern of scratches on his body and the fading bite marks. His mind tried to summon up the memories of how he came by these marks, but the thoughts of that night suddenly made him feel nauseous. The thought of being intimate with the woman named Sophia made him feel soiled in some way, and he scrubbed his skin with soap until it was raw. There was something about the disjointed memories of that night that felt deeply disturbing as if in being intimate with that woman he had committed an abomination against nature.
Corbett picked the suit jacket from the floor and studied the label; it was from a tailor he had not heard of with an address in Saville Row. The nearest he had ever come to a tailor in Saville Row, would have been when he staggered past their premises on his way back from some club or other. He could safely say that he had not visited that area of the city in quite a while; trips up that side had long since gone beyond his budget. What a suit of clothes like this cost he did not have a clue, but he could hazard a guess it was at least a couple of hundred quid. He knew at least one pawnshop that would advance him some funds against a fine suit like this. Taking a clothes hanger from the wardrobe and an old suit bag, he carefully laid out the suit to check for marks and go through the pockets. In the inside pocket of the jacket, he found the envelope, the tape that had held it to the bottom of the desk was still attached. He sat on the mattress and turned the envelope over in his hands, for some reason a part of him wanted to dispose of it without looking inside, while his reporter’s instinct screamed at him to open it.
The simple act of opening the envelope, an act he had performed countless times over his lifetime, proved more difficult than he would have imagined. For some reason, his hands began to shake and his fingers refused to cooperate, the memory of Jones’s parting words about forgetting all about Granger aka Sykes suddenly sounded loud in his mind. When he did finally get the envelope open, it turned out to be somewhat of an anti-climax. A single sheet of stationery containing a four-digit number, to which was taped a cheap-looking locker key, consisted of the entirety of the contents of the mysterious envelope. He was still sitting staring at the piece of paper when the phone rang, the sudden piercing ring made his heart skip a beat. “Hello, Corbett is that you, I have been trying to reach you for days.” Jones’s voice carried a tone of relief tinged with what Corbett thought might be fear. Something had the detective concerned and Jack had a feeling that it meant bad news for someone.
The Lame Duck was not a pub you would expect to find a detective socializing in unless he was working undercover. It was situated in a narrow alleyway that in a moment of grandeur someone deemed to be a street; a street light on either end of the narrow street did little to illuminate the area, and apart from the dull glow of the lights above the pub door the area was in darkness. The inside of the pub was every bit as decrepit as the dingy exterior; the ancient carpet stank of cheap disinfectant, which did little to mask the stench of stale beer and vomit. Lamps dotted around the interior were all fitted with low wattage bulbs, and most of the floor space was lost in shadow. Corbett stood just inside the door waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, a surly heavily tattooed man sat behind the bar leafing through a magazine, while three men that were seated at a table near the corner of the bar eyed Corbett with suspicion.
His first instinct was to turn on his heel and leave; perhaps he had misheard Jones when he told him the name of the pub. But just as he put his hand on the door handle, Jones called to him from an alcove lost in shadow. “Over here Corbett, I have a drink for you”. Jones sat in the corner of the alcove, his features completely lost in the shadows. A hand reached out of the shadows and pushed a whiskey glass towards Corbett, the hand was wrapped tightly in a white bandage. Jones lit a cigarette and it was the first time Corbett got a look at his face since entering the pub; the detective looked like death warmed up. His face had a deathly pallor that was accentuated by the three-day stubble on his cheeks, but it was his eyes that were most startling. They were sunken back in his head as if he had not slept in days, and they had a haunted look about them. Corbett sipped the whiskey and waited for Jones to speak, the detective sat in silence for a long time as if gathering his thoughts. When he did speak it sounded as if he scarcely believed his own words.
“Things started getting very strange after you came to the station asking about Maurice Granger, I was summoned to the superintendent’s office and given the third degree regarding our relationship. I was left under no illusion that any further questions about Granger’s death, would earn me a reprimand. I was also informed that any further contact from you was to be reported to higher authorities, but the strangest thing was that I had the feeling that I was constantly under surveillance. I always resented being treated like a moron, so I called in a few favors at the coroner’s office. It turns out there are two separate reports on the cause of Mr. Granger’s demise, the official one is a clear-cut case of death by suicide. The one I was told about says there was clear evidence of torture before death. Last night I had a caller to my flat, a tall thin guy that looked like he stepped out of the past.”
Jones’s held up the bandaged hand and stared at it as if he could not believe what he was looking at. “There was something not quite right about that guy; he had a bad smell on him. If you asked me he smelled of death, and here is the thing. He was looking for you, and he held my hand over the cooker until he was sure I did not know where you were. I have never come across anyone as strong as that guy, I can handle myself and he overpowered me as if I were a rag doll. I must have passed out and when I came around he was gone, but I swear the smell of him is still in my flat.” Jones finished his story and they lapsed into silence, the detective was trying to make sense of what had taken place. While Corbett weighed up his options, the sheet of paper and the key were in his coat pocket but he had to decide whether he trusted Jones. But in reality, he knew he had little choice, there was no one else to turn to, and he was beginning to get very scared indeed.
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