Janus arrived home from his excursion to Chorelywood and the Jamesons’ favoured garage. The partial reading he was able to perform on the service report had shown him one thing for certain; it was not Liz who had picked up the Jamesons’ 4x4 and if it wasn’t her, who had signed for it? Liz didn’t have straight hair and she definitely didn’t have brown hair; he ought to know.
Although he had another piece to the puzzle which showed that Liz's accident and Mandy's death were inextricably linked, it still didn't give him any information as to who the brown haired woman was or even who was behind the accidents, one of them being fatal.
Furthermore, the spirit of Conan Doyle had told him he was being framed for the deaths and accidents so far. This fact alone had been underlined by a morning raid, a few days before, on his flat by three police officers who had taken him to the police station.
He needed to figure out who the person was before they could 'rid' him, as the spirit had put it, of all those that had helped him on his way to his success.
Rid!
The thought struck him suddenly; surely this meant that someone else was going to die, but who? It was not Richard, so that could only leave Liz, after a moment's pause he thought, and the reader, the one responsible for giving his work the thumbs up so that Richard would go ahead and publish. But which one was it? Liz or the reader? Richard only went ahead with publishing his work on the reader's say so. It must be the reader, Janus decided. This decision now left him with a very big problem; he didn't know who the reader was. Richard Jameson kept that information strictly to himself, just in case over enthusiastic writers felt the readers may require a little help in making a good decision.
Janus picked up his mobile phone from his desk and speed dialled Richard. The phone answered, “Richard?” Janus said.
“Please leave a message,” the voice mail chirped. Richard must be in the hospital, Janus thought, and pressed the button to cancel the call placing his mobile phone back on his desk.
He had to get in contact with the reader as soon as possible; to warn them. But how could he? He didn't know the name or address. There was no choice, he had to contact the hospital and speak to Richard but which hospital was it? Janus racked his brains trying to recall the conversation he’d had with Richard. He sighed heavily; Richard hadn't told him which hospital he had arranged for Liz.
Janus needed to act quickly as he had no idea how long the reader had before they became another victim, if his intuition was right; so the sooner he warned them the better. Janus had only one option left; he had to go back to the R.J.P building and search his boss's office for the phone number. Once there he could call the reader and give them an advanced warning, or even better, tell them to get out of their house until the police had arrested the perpetrator.
Janus took his jacket from the coat stand in his small hallway and ran out of his front door heading for the station at a pace; running would be a lot quicker than waiting for a cab.
As he shut the front door and started his sprint a car containing two men, started up, and pulled out slowly into the road, following him.
Janus left Piccadilly station running and soon reached the side door to the R.J.P building. It took him a few long moments to get the key into the lock and open the door as the day was already getting dark and the alley at the side of the building was not well lit. Once inside he tapped the numbers to the office’s alarm, disabling it, as he had done on previous occasions.
Janus ran up the stairs to the third floor, ignoring the lifts, he didn’t have enough time to wait for them. Turning right, at the top of the staircase, he headed for Richard's office. Bursting through the office door he flicked the light switch on illuminating the interior of his boss’s office; then made straight for the filing cabinet. He had no idea how Richard filed his paperwork. He had no idea as to how he would track down his reader; the person he needed to save. No matter, he felt the filing cabinet was the best place to start.
He pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet, it was marked authors.
Good
, Janus thought. He rifled through the paperwork, pulling out files at random. Not one of the author’s details had the reader Richard had assigned to them listed. He pulled open the second drawer, bills and billing. This wasn’t the right drawer either. He pulled out a third drawer, stationers and suppliers. Janus was getting frantic; the situation was not looking good at all.
Janus went through the remaining drawers from the top of the cabinet to the bottom. There was nothing relating to readers in any of them.
As he carried on his search Janus became aware of an increasing sense of urgency. He was certain something bad was going to happen and it was going to happen very soon. He had to find his reader's phone number without any further delay. Without result he decided it was time he tried contacting Richard once more. Janus reached for his mobile phone, it wasn't there. He checked all his pockets. He must have dropped it, but then he remembered leaving it on the table at home. Quickly he went over to Richard's desk and reached for the phone; then froze.
Richard's number was in his mobile, he'd only had to put the entry in his phone once, some many months ago and had no idea of what it was now. Janus threw the phone’s receiver at Richard’s desk in frustration.
Everything was conspiring against him. It was as if his fate and his reader's were predestined and there was nothing he could do about it. Janus stopped trying to collect his thoughts, he needed to calm down. He sat in Richard's chair staring at the desk trying to think of another way round the problem.
Then he saw it, a card index; he reached for it slowly, hoping that this was what he thought it was. He opened it. The first card in the index announced ‘Readers’. Janus could not believe it, he flicked through and found his name, followed by a genre definition and finally;
Reader: Jim Hapstread; Address: 87d Camlet Street, Shoreditch; Phone Number: 0207 299 1873.
Janus picked up the phone and dialled the number on the card index. Nothing happened. He remembered the phone system at the Sites and Monuments Office where he worked part-time, then tried prefixing the reader's number with digits to get an outside line.
Nine; no effect, zero; the same, ninety-nine; again no effect. This was ridiculous. Janus slammed the phone down angrily. There was only one option left and that was to get to his reader's address before anything happened. Janus snatched Jim Hapstread's card from the index and made his way out of the building as fast as he could.
As Janus left the alleyway and ran towards Piccadilly Circus tube station, one of the pedestrians in the street stopped to look at him. Once Janus had turned the corner of Museum Street and was out of sight, the bystander pulled his jacket collar close to his mouth and spoke quietly into it.
Running through the entrance to Piccadilly tube station Janus stopped for a moment to check the tube map. He would have to jump onto the Bakerloo line and then on to the District line to get to Whitechapel, from there, according to the notices, he would either have to walk to Shoreditch or catch a bus. Janus thought it would be quicker to walk from Whitechapel as he wouldn't have to wait for the vagaries of the temporary bus service to bear fruit.
He left the train at Whitechapel and picked up an A to Z street map from one of the shops on the way out. Checking it quickly he saw that he would have to make his way down Selby Street, then along Cheshire Street until he hit the Bethnal Green Road. Once there he would have to cross the main road and turn north into Camlet Street. He closed the book and started running again.
By the time he had got to the beginning of Camlet Street he was out of breath and began to walk slowly up the tree enclosed road. It was now 10.00 p.m. The road was dark and the weather had taken a turn for the worse.
Rain fell from the sky. The road itself was surprisingly quiet. All that could be heard, as he sought the reader's house, were the hard drops of rain hitting the road surface and the wind gusting in all directions through the treetops. The branches of the trees knocked together making a clack, clack, sound.
Janus looked around, the place was devoid of people and the only movement to be seen was the odd cat, now and again, making its way across the sodium soaked road. Janus tried to shrug the feeling of oppression from his shoulders.
After a few moments he saw the number he was looking for, number 87. The building was tall building, light being restrictively shed from small gaps in the curtains, which separated the apartments’ rooms from the rest of the world.
He walked slowly up the steps that led to the entrance of the building, expecting to have to press the button for 87d on the intercom, but he reached out he noticed the building’s front door was slightly ajar. Janus shivered as a feeling that everything was wrong started to envelop him.
He entered the building and saw that 87a was on the first floor; this meant that he would have to traverse three other flights before he got to the door of Jim Hapstread’s apartment.
Janus took hold of the stairs’ balustrade with trepidation. He paused for a moment, unsure whether he should continue; the low wattage lighting lending itself to the disquiet he felt, but he knew what was at stake. Breaking his hesitation he started up the stairs again. The whole hallway was very poorly lit.
Outside 87 Camlet Street an unremarkable car crawled past the front of the property, its occupants staring at the open front door of the building. They spoke quickly to each other before deciding to pull the car over to the side of the road and park.
Janus trod the stairwell carefully; he wasn't quite sure why, but his intuition told him to behave this way.
On reaching the third floor landing he turned towards 87d. The door to this flat was also open, very slightly, just as the entrance had been. Janus swallowed, his mouth was dry; he knew what he had to do but was certain he didn't want to do it. He stopped for another moment contemplating his options. In reality there was no choice; if he was going to stop the macabre show he was now a part of, he had to enter Jim Hapstread's flat.
Janus made his way from the top of the stairs, across the building’s black and white tiled landing and entered the open door of Jim Hapstread’s flat.
Inside, the entrance hall was dark; the only illumination coming from a lamp in what seemed to be the lounge. Like a moth attracted to the light Janus walked towards it, making his way carefully along the hall and into the lounge past an open side door which led to the bathroom.
On the floor next to the sofa was the body of a fifty something man, perfectly still. Janus sighed inwardly. He had got there too late.
Before he could think anymore, a noise from a room adjacent to the lounge startled him. He turned slowly towards it. From the shapes he could determine in the dim light, this room was obviously the kitchen and in it was a person, bent over, going through one of the cupboards.
Janus made his way as silently as he could towards the nondescript figure. The individual stood up abruptly still with their back towards him. Janus stopped, hardly breathing. He was now standing behind the hooded person. They were so focussed on their task they hadn’t even sensed his presence.
Janus quickly reached forward and pulled the track suit hood from the person’s head. As the hood came off it revealed the ‘brownish’ hair Gregory Smith had mentioned, all those days ago. It was the brownish hair he’d seen in his vision at the garage.
Janus grabbed the trespasser’s shoulders and turned them round to face him. His legs almost gave way from shock when he saw who it was.
“You!” Janus cried out, recognising the individual.
“Yes, darling, it's me. How nice to see you after all this time,” his ex-wife sneered, raising an eight inch long kitchen knife, shoving it in his direction.
“Why have you done all this?” Janus wanted to know, “Why have you hurt my friends, killed their children, ruined their lives, and mine? What did they do to deserve it? No one deserves what you have done. What did I do to you?” Janus demanded.
“Ruined your life? What about me?” his ex-wife said as vehemently as he’d put the original question, “You ruined mine,” she continued. “You stopped my money; I had to sell my house and all my beautiful things. You left me without a family home and without a family. You went out of your way to hurt me. You got what you deserved and now your life is ruined as you ruined mine.”
“Lois,” Janus said, “you divorced me. The judge said that the payments would stop after four years. That's what was agreed.” The barrage of short and clipped statements from his ex-wife worried him; he had no idea how to counter this. This was not a situation he'd ever come across and still she continued.
“You never thought about me; you didn't even share your Dad's money when he died.”
There was a slight pause and Janus responded. “Lois, we were divorced, it was something you wanted.”
“You never contacted me; never called to say hello; never bought me nice things for my birthday; or for Christmas.” The barrage carried on.
Janus knew his ex-wife had always trod a fine line between instability and sanity. One of the reasons he had married her in the first place was because he thought he could help her, and help her stay the right side of the line.
He had loved her deeply and when she had demanded a divorce, through her solicitor claiming unreasonable behaviour, he had sacrificed his feelings to give her what she wanted; because he had truly believed that was what would make her happy.
There was a sudden crash as the front door to the reader’s flat was forced back against the hallway’s wall by the police.
Since Janus had been taken into the police station for questioning, and released, Detective Inspector Davis had arranged Janus Malik to be followed.
“Madam, drop the knife now and move away from Mr Malik,” a police officer commanded as he entered the lounge.
In response to the command Lois Malik lunged at Janus, the knife thrust out in front of her. Janus parried the knife with his forearm as he stepped to one side, but the knife still managed to slash its way through his coat sleeve. Janus guided his ex-wife into the wall behind him, using her own force.
The police officer grabbed Lois Malik and forced her to the floor knocking the knife from her hand. Once she was disarmed the officer quickly shackled her hands behind her back as she lay face down on the linoleum. Other officers entered the room and seeing the unconscious reader on the floor they called for an ambulance.
As Lois Malik was taken from the building to a waiting police car, she turned to Janus who was now at the top of the steps to the building, clasping his injured arm tightly.
“You bastard, Janus, you set me up, how dare you ruin my life, you fucking bastard. I’ll get you for this, you piece of shit… I’ll make sure my…” Spittle formed around her mouth as she spat out the vile words and threats only being cut off once the door to the police car had been slammed shut. Janus could still see her mouth working as the car drove away.
Janus was almost beyond shock. He'd never heard Lois speak like this before; she had truly gone over the edge. He could see now how twisted and insanely jealous his ex-wife had become and how, to her, everyone around him had become his family, excluding her from any part of it, not that she was owed any of it.
“Mr Malik,” one of the police officers interrupted his thoughts, “there's an ambulance outside and I think you should have your arm looked at, in hospital.”
Janus looked at the sleeve of his jacket; it was getting darker, his blood marginally being absorbed by the material, the remainder dripping to the floor.
“Thank you, officer,” Janus said. He made his way down the steps and towards the waiting ambulance, tightening his grip on his arm as he did so.
During the journey to the nearest hospital the shock of what had been revealed sunk in and an intense feeling of guilt blackened his thoughts. If it wasn't for him Richard's daughter would still be alive, the Jamesons would still have a house and Mandy would be alive as well.
He wanted to believe he couldn't have predicted the actions his ex-wife had taken, because everything had been fine, in a way, for the four years he had been with her.
But it was now more than apparent the fact the money had stopped, and the fact that he’d finally found a new life to lead, had pushed her over the fine line she had been treading for as long as he could remember.