Authors: JOHN YORVIK
“Please, it’s Tommy. We have everything from film and video production to art galleries and exhibition spaces. AmizFire Productions is a cultural experiment. We’re constantly charting new waters. In fact, yesterday I signed a soul band from Camden, AmizMusic Studios is in the basement. Something that might interest Free Press in the future.”
Dani was very quiet. She was brooding over something. The lift doors opened and we stepped out into a large white room.
“This is called The White Room,” said Mr Burns, “no prizes for guessing why. Now, I have to make a phone call so I’ll leave you two to look around.”
“Thank you, Mr Burns.”
“My pleasure, Lishman. Write a good story about us or we’ll know where to find you.” He smiled in a way to signal it was a joke, but humour didn’t seem to come naturally to him. He got back in the lift and disappeared.
Dani was on her haunches fixing her camera for indoors. I took out my notebook and pen and squatted down beside her.
“What’s wrong, Dani? You seem pissed off about something?”
“Couldn’t you feel it?” she said in a whisper.
“Feel what?” I whispered back.
“When he’s around,” she said, pointing to the lift doors, “his aura”.
“I have to be honest. I felt nothing,” I said. I had little time for the New Age myself. It was too anti-Enlightenment. I feared if they ever came to power, they would ban coffee.
We moved over to the first piece. It was called
Lice
and contained a scale model of Trafalgar Square with images of tiny lice projected onto the ground, milling around in their thousands. There was a telescope available to the visitor. I pointed it at a crowd of lice and pressed a button. I got a close-up of a louse standing upright dressed in an overcoat, its louse-head poked out of the top but its hands were human. Every time I pressed the button I got a different louse in a different outfit. The first one was holding a newspaper. The second, an umbrella and a mobile phone. Dani was unable to get a clear photo of the installation, so she got a shot of me looking through the telescope.
“A louse, looking at a louse,” she quipped.
“Thanks.”
“Just suggesting a caption.”
The second piece was called
Look-In Glass
. This time there was a viewer box that you put your head into. I pressed the button and a film began. It was as if I was seeing through the eyes of someone else. Two arms in front of me swung in camera shot as the person walked. It was not clear if they were male or female limbs. The film suddenly cut to a breakfast scene. One hand held a cup of tea while the other turned the pages of a newspaper that was on a table. The screen cleared and then resumed. I saw a bathroom. The tiles were splattered with blood. The camera panned towards a bath. In there was a dead body with a petrified look on her face. The same arms appeared in screen shot, instead of a cup of tea, this time the hand was holding a large blood-covered knife. The camera turned towards the mirror and I saw my own face projected on the mirror.
“Jeez, how did they do that?” I jumped back with the shock. When I’d gathered myself together to look again, instead of my face was the face of a primitive man, a Neanderthal, then an ape. Each stage in man’s evolution morphed slowly into the next, backwards and forwards.
We were moving onto the next installation when I felt my mobile begin to vibrate. I clicked answer. It was Tommy Burns telling me that the artist wouldn’t be coming after all but that we could do an email interview with her later. I thanked him and told him we would be leaving AmizArt in about ten minutes. A throbbing had begun in my head and I was ready to take a pill and get some sleep.
* * *
“You’re not going to like this,” Marty said.
“What?”
“Three psychos at two o’clock. Staring.”
I turned and saw danger in the shape of three outsized men wearing jeans and heavy boots. He was right. They were looking at us as if they wanted us dead. It was hard to misread those signs.
“Let’s go,” I urged.
“No can do. I come here all the time.”
“Yeah, but they don’t.”
I looked to see if any of the windows would open onto the street, but they were blacked out and nailed shut.
“Too late, mate. They’re waiting by the only exit,” said Marty as if reading my thoughts. “We have to accept what’s coming.”
“I’m really buzzing. What’s in that coke, PCP?”
“Testosterone. I’m trying to grow you a pair.”
“So they can be ripped off by some ‘roid heads?”
“Okay, let’s do it. Don’t try any of your amateur judo shit. It gets in the way. Go primitive. You’ll need to find a weapon. These guys are killers. Look at them.”
“Promise we’ll just walk out of here. I’m not ready. This has come out of nowhere.”
“Just when you least expect it. It’s always the case. Look, if we don’t fight, we won’t be walking anywhere. Attack is our only defence.”
My hands were trembling. I lit a cigarette, took a quick drag and stood up. Marty was in his element. He pushed his palm against my chest, holding me back, “Me first,” he said.
I turned to see three shadowy figures quickly approaching Marty through the reds and blues of the neon. The ringleader, suede-headed and shorter than the other two, leapt up and landed a head-butt on Marty sending him crashing backwards. But Marty was back up in a flash, smashing a bar stool into Suedehead’s gut. He went down. Marty ducked a bottle from the guy wearing a bomber jacket while taking out the third man with a sharp kick into the side of his knee – you could almost hear the joint pop. Marty turned his attention to Bomberjacket, palm-punching his face and kicking at his kidneys then dodging back to a safe distance. But suddenly he was in trouble again, Suedehead was back up, pinning Marty’s arms from behind, so Bomberjacket could take free punches. As the beating ensued, Marty’s eyes found me, imploring me to act, but I was caught in the headlights of ultra-violence, over-adrenalised with coke and fear. I looked up and down the bar, no police, no bouncers. I knew I had to act or lose Marty forever, either by death or cowardice.
I waded in and got my arms around Bomberjacket’s neck. Using the one judo hold I knew, I forced my wrist bone into his Adam’s apple. He thrashed fiercely with his elbows, slamming into my ribs but I held on as he bucked and tried to throw me off. Then he reached back and began scratching and gouging my face. Marty used the distraction to swing his legs forward and give Bomberjacket a fierce kick in the balls. I felt him go limp and let him drop to the floor. Meanwhile, Suedehead grabbed an ashtray and smashed it on Marty’s head. He went down. Suedehead stepped forward and was about to hit me with the ashtray when he seemed to notice something in the distance and ran out the door. I turned to see security staff talking to the barman who was pointing our way. I went to get Marty.
“Let’s go!”
I lifted him up. He smiled at me, blood running from the side of his mouth where he’d bit his own cheek.
“I told you. No amateur judo shit,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
“C’mon!” I shouted.
We ran to the door. Marty suddenly animated again, took the opportunity to give Bomberjacket another kick in the balls as he passed. Rolling in pain, I heard him shout something as we ran out the door. It sounded like
Za-beej
.
We ran up Old Street past a shabby all-night garage. Nobody had followed us out of the bar.
“Up here,” Marty said, and pointed to a back lane. “Okay, stop running.”
I stopped. I was shaking out of control. I kneeled down and vomited. Marty stood over me and lit a cigarette.
“You took your time.”
“What?” I managed to say between dry heaves.
“But when you got in there, you did the business,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he really meant it, but he was happy.
“Drug-enhanced performance.”
“You’re covered in blood,” he said.
“So are you.”
Marty took off his jacket and handed it to me. He took off his tee-shirt and used it to clean his face and hands and threw it in a nearby dumper. He put on his jacket and buttoned it up to the collar. He looked me up and down a few times.
“Zip up your jacket and we’re good to go.”
I’d woken on Sunday afternoon with my head hot and whirring like a cheap laptop. My impression was that something bad had happened but I had no idea what. No inkling of what time I got home on Saturday night. No memory of what happened after the fight. Coke had that effect on me: a general loss of faculties. Sunday afternoon, all jacked up and nowhere to go, I drank half a bottle of whisky to bring me down and then slept straight through till Monday and here I was, only half a person.
There was a knock at the door. I didn’t answer. It was nine o’clock on a bank holiday and I wasn’t expecting any visitors. No-one I knew would dream of calling round this early on a day off. The paranoid part of my brain was wondering if I’d caused a scene when I got home Saturday night, and that this was a neighbour coming to remonstrate. I noticed a brown manila envelope had been slid under the door. And such was my lack of interest in post sent in brown envelopes, that it lay there on the green threadbare mat, untouched, while I continued to nurse my monumental hangover, writhing in paranoia.
At eleven o’clock I decided to go down to the pharmacy to get some painkillers, so I had a shower and got ready. It was threatening to rain so I put on my long black mac and brogues. The clothes I’d bought when I first came to London with dreams of being a serious journalist. That was back when I thought my first desk would be on the bottom floor of a broadsheet newspaper instead of in the cramped bunkers of FP.
On the way out of the flat I picked up the envelope. It felt like the usual art gallery promotional material relentlessly sent out to cultural journalists, so I left it on the sideboard for later.
Descending the stairs, I stopped and held on to the banister as a wave of nausea washed over me.
* * *
“I was jumped,” I told her in explanation, though she hadn’t asked for one. “My ribs are killing me. I’m going to take Ibuprofen and hope for the best.” She didn’t reply.
She went out the back and returned quickly with the coffee and water. This time not meeting my eye at all. It was clear that a man with scratches on his face is seen as the aggressor and not the victim. Trying to explain myself had only made it worse.
As I sat there blowing on my coffee, which was too hot to drink, the waitress was whispering to her colleague, who was reading the paper. She glanced at me for a second and then returned nervously back to the paper. I had to get out of there. I swallowed two painkillers with water then asked the waitress to make my coffee to go. She transferred it to a cardboard cup and handed it to me. I paid the bill and left.
Walking over to the kiosk outside Hampstead Underground, I picked up a local newspaper and looked at the front page:
Pentonville Strangler Kills Immigrant.
Under the headline was a grainy photo of the immigrant in question. I looked several times at the photo not able to take it in and found myself saying “Natasha” out loud. It was definitely her: “Polish immigrant Dr Natasha Rokitzky who worked at AmizFire Productions was found asphyxiated in her bed in a flat off Pentonville Road. Neighbours discovered the body on Sunday evening. The exact time of death is unknown. Police are appealing for people to come forward with any information.”
Next to the photo of Natasha was a photofit picture of someone that neighbours had seen entering the block of flats with Natasha on Thursday night. It had my eyes and nose. The street raptors had got a good look at me. I sat on the steps of the Underground entrance drinking the coffee in gulps. I put down the coffee and lit a cigarette, my hand shaking as I put it to my lips. White lights flashed in my peripheral vision. For a split second I saw an image of a blood splattered bathroom, a knife in my hand. I shook my head in a literal attempt to remove the picture from my mind.
My first thought was to go to the police and tell them as much as I knew. Clear my name. But then I looked at the article again. “The
Pentonville Strangler
has killed twice before and has baffled police by leaving no clues.” I thought about all the times the police had settled for the most likely suspect in cases where there were no other leads: the boyfriend, the husband, the jealous ex. Those convenient credible victims only finding freedom after a decade or more of wrongful incarceration. Maybe they would hang the two other murders on me, clearing their backlog of unsolved cases.
Natasha and I hadn’t had sex so I was sure to fit some criminologist’s profile: the killer who strangled because of his impotency. And if we had consummated our brief affair, then traces of my DNA would be enough to secure the conviction. As it was my DNA would be all over the cigarette butts, the glass of water; fingerprints all over her body. More white flashes, this time my hands covered in blood.
I tried to concentrate on the blurb under the photofit. “If you think you know this man, or you can give us any information as to his whereabouts, don’t hesitate to call this number.” I reached for my coffee and sipped the dregs, acid burned in my stomach. I had the sensation someone was watching me. I looked up and saw the newspaper vendor speaking on his mobile with his hand over his mouth. Across the road, the waitress leant against the window looking at me while she smoked. A taxi driver was sitting in his parked cab reading the newspaper and glancing over in my direction. White flashes of Natasha dead in the bath, her expression twisted and grotesque.
I stood up and walked towards the Tube barriers. I couldn’t find any change for the machine and there was a long queue at the ticket office. I didn’t want to use my bank card in the machine because it would register my identity. I was pacing back and forth with the feeling the world was closing in on me. The newspaper vendor was standing in the entrance of the station. He seemed to be gesticulating my way. With a quick look around, I took a run up and leapt the barrier.
I heard the shouts as I hit the ground and headed for the stairs. A large man blocking my way prepared to grab me. Always a nifty winger, I feinted to the left and twisted to the right leaving him grasping at air.
I headed for the fire escape. But I was in trouble. Someone was following me. I heard their heavy footsteps thundering behind me as I sprinted down the spiral staircase into the depths of Hampstead Underground.
I jumped four, five sometimes six steps at a time, each impact causing pain to shoot up through my body. One slip, one clumsy footfall and I’d break a leg, but there was nothing else for it but to keep running. The profile of my pursuer crept ahead of me filling up the wall like a Victorian shadow puppet. Although the man himself was still a good twenty yards behind me, I knew he was gaining on me with every step. I had to lose him before I got to the platform or I’d be caught.
I stopped virtually mid-stride and threw my body across the stairwell. Seconds later a man came rushing towards me. In a last gasp attempt to avoid my raised leg, he leapt past me, then fell tumbling over and over before landing in a heap. I ran down the stairs to see if he was alright. He was a big man, probably a security guard. He was wearing a blue uniform and a black baseball cap with a
LUSecurity
insignia. He was in a lot of pain and looked petrified as I approached. I crouched down beside him and moved my hand towards his face. He flinched as I pulled the cap off his head.
I could hear more footsteps coming, so I got on my way. I walked briskly down the remainder of the stairs, stripping off my mac and shoving it into my side bag. Then I took out my Walkman and wired myself up and pulled the cap down low over my brow. When I got to the bottom of the stairs a few seconds later, I pressed play and got a blast of Serge Gainsbourg in my ears.
Instead of going to the platform, where a train had just pulled in, I turned towards the lifts, acting oblivious to the mob descending nearby. The lift doors opened and I entered with two others and we were soon back to ground level.
I could see two police cars with blue lights flashing waiting outside the station. Bored officers were taking statements from the vendor and the taxi driver. Approaching the exit barriers, I realised I didn’t have a ticket. This time jumping and running wasn’t an option. I switched off my Walkman and holding the left earphone like a small radio mike and cupping my hand around my ear, I walked straight up to the Tube inspector, indicated my cap, and said, “I’m needed out there, mate”. He opened the gate and waved me through.
I stopped on the entrance steps to light a cigarette. Then I slipped the earphone back into my ear and switched on the music. Pulling down my cap, I walked towards the policemen and the taxi driver looking blankly into the distance. They may have said something, I had no idea, all I could hear was Gainsbourg’s
Le Poinconneur Des Lilas
. Losing myself in the music, I merged seamlessly into the crowd.
* * *
I opened the front door and ran up the stairs to my flat. In a bid to look more like an urban Londoner than the Columbine killer, I changed into jeans, a hoodie, an old green baseball cap and trainers. I transferred the contents of my side bag into an old haversack and added a toothbrush, a notebook and a roll of cash that I had hidden in an old shoe. I didn’t trust banks and had deposited my inheritance in various locations about the flat.
I tried to call Marty on my landline but his phone was switched off. I called Dani and told her I was on my way. I opened the back of my mobile phone and took out the battery. Then I left the house and made my way up the street at a trot.