PEEL-BEHIND THEIR EYES. Book 1 (Complete)

Chapter 32. Growing darkness

The fogged windows of Havers car had suddenly vanished to be replaced with pain and darkness. Now the fog of confusion and again pain baffled the waking detective.

Havers reached a hand to the back of his head and winced as a new startling pain pulled at his arm. The thrashing metal sound confused him even more. His head, exploding with fireworks calmed enough to allow him to venture opening an eye. The surprised stabbing pain of light never came, instead, opening his eyes completely he was greeted by a blanket of darkness. The cold room that he lay sprawled was lit by the barest luminescence of what looked to be a small window above him covered by a thin sheet. Looking around he could just make out the bare square room of brick and concrete.

Through the fog of memory Havers tried to recall how he came to be there. He remembered sitting in his car watching for the return of Richard Barringer and being bored senseless, he also remembered jumping as a fist size object had landed on the bonnet of his car. He had rolled down the window and stuck out his head to see what the hell it was. It had been a small dead bird. He had laughed out loud at the idea of a bird flying overhead and literally dropping dead onto his car. He had grabbed the newspaper on the passenger side seat, rolled it up and tried to push the little corpse off. As he had strained through the window he had sensed more than saw a shadow settle over him, a shadow that had fallen painfully on to him. After that, he remembered nothing, until now!

Still feeling too weak to sit up Havers attempted to shout out for someone and with shocked surprise, he realized that what he had mistaken for the woolliness of sleep in his mouth was, in fact, a gag. As the gravity of his situation filtered through his mind, he raised his hands to see what had held him back. The tightly fitting chains sent a chill that was colder than the stark room he was held captive in running to the pit of his already unsettled gut. Scared, he thought,

"Oh! Please no!"

____________

The dry stuffy heat that had built up in the airless storage room during the day had cooled as the holes in the roof had grown dark and night and the temperature had fallen. The noise of returning pigeons comforted Macy as she hacked away at the brickwork.

"Life still goes on and so will mine" she kept telling herself as her hands screamed in pain.

Desperately thirsty her lips began to dry and crack and her breathing had become labored as she sucked in another dusty lung full.

The cold was soothing her injured hand a little as well as her other heavily blistered hand, but she continued to hack as hard as she could. But no matter how hard she tried she could feel that every swing was gradually losing its strength, as was she.

Macy stopped, placed her makeshift chisel down and grabbed the chain holding her, giving it a sharp tug she was rewarded with a little give. Picking up the chisel she continued to strike at the wall "Just a little more"

__________________

The setting sun reflected sharply off of the bay window of the detached suburban house as Peel parked his car in its open driveway. It was a tight squeeze between the old flaking wrought iron gate posts but he liked to have his Range Rover off the road and away from trouble. There were far too many boy racers on the road for his liking these days.

With a plastic bag swinging in his hand which contained his latest bottle of coping juice, Peel unlocked the familiar red worn front door to his mother's house. As he shut the door he caught sight of the 'for sale sign' swaying in the growing breeze and felt a pang of sadness at the coming loss of his childhood home.

Memories of everything that had happened inside the house made him want to bulldoze it to the ground. He slammed the door shut and headed for the kitchen to retrieve a glass and ice. The bottle unwrapped, Peel cracked the seal and unscrewed the lid. As he poured he listened to the lid pinwheel crazily around and around getting faster and then losing momentum shuddering to a stop. Peel sipped his drink and looked at the still lid and thought "that's just how I feel, my life spinning out of control, it's just that I haven't even begun to slow down"

Peel emptied half the glass down his throat before dialing the pre-programmed number for his mother's nursing home. As he listened to it ring he thought of what he should say and came up blank. The ringing stopped and a woman's voice greeted him.

"Hello, Newgrove residential home"

Peel held the receiver to his ear and said nothing.

"Hello?" the woman's voice inquired again.

Peel finally asked to speak with his mother and waited again for the phone to be answered as he was patched through. A frail old woman spoke tentatively, a voice he did not recognize as the strong young woman from his childhood.

"Hi mum," Peel's voice croaked from exhaustion.

This time, it was his mother's turn to remain silent and unsure. Sensing her confusion Peel spoke "It's me mother, Robert, your son. I'm just phoning to check that you are alright"

An uncomfortable pause hung in the air before the frail voice answered

"Oh, er hello," she said slowly.

Peels heart sank, he could hear her confusion and knew she didn't recognize him. Almost pleading he said "Mummy, it's me, Bobbie"

Tears filled his eyes as he realized he had reverted to calling her mummy. The lost little boy that had spent many scared years trying to protect her from his father abuse had surfaced. His heart yearned for his mother to remember him, he didn't want to be lost anymore.

His mother's frail voice grew a little stronger "Oh Bobbie, how's my little policeman I didn't hear you come in. Did you have a nice day at school"?

Peel, both happy that she remembered him at last, but disappointed that it was him as a child that she remembered, choke back a sob.

Suddenly his mother gasped and shouted down the phone making Peel jump and hold the phone away from his ear.

"Mother, mother what's wrong are you alright?" He asked urgently.

This time, his mother sounded afraid and in a hushed scared voice that he could barely hear, said "Oh Bobbie look at the time, your father will be home any minute. Quick go to your room and be quiet and don't come down no matter what you hear, OK" and without warning the line went dead.

Peel felt wretched at the thought of his elderly mother stuck in the past, cowering in her room scared at the idea of her abusive husband returning home so many years's after his death.

Peel desperately phoned the nursing home again and after speaking with the staff he unhappily took his glass and the bottle of whiskey to the living room and sat with his father's diary from 1978 on his lap.

The memory of something he had read in the diary from the previous evening had him worried and on edge. There was something his father had written that had at the time meant nothing to him, so he had let it pass. Now sat with his belly burning satisfactorily from the fiery scotch Peel thought about what the nurse had said.

"What was her name, Button, no Sutton. Nurse Sutton had said that Rebecca had been singing the little fishy rhyme before she had been rushed into surgery. I remember that nursery rhyme from when I was a very young boy, a girl I had met had sung it to me once, a girl father had introduced me to, but why?"

His glass empty again Peel poured another generous helping and sank a third of it in one mouthful. Enjoying the burn, he began to flick through his father's diary. He remembered that his father had written "Today is the day I take Robert to meet her, I hope they get along"

As Peel searched for the correct page, without knowing it he began to quietly sing to himself:

"One... Two... Three four five, once I caught a little fishy alive...................