You cocked it up Shipwater!

Detective-Inspector Vitali Shenco sat slumped in his old leather chair, his ancient office bedecked with burgundy leather furniture and mahogany wall panels which sat deep into the carpet, a carpet once resplendent now mottled with cigar ash and coffee stains, the heavy scent of old smoke and evoking an almost tomb-like ambiance.

On his lion-footed desk squats an ugly magnolia-grey access terminal planted on the top of his green felt writing pad like some sort of technological fungus trying to leach the very soul from him.

If he wanted to send a letter he’d bloody well write one, he had told them he couldn’t bloody well type.

‘Could I not just get my cases on paper?’ He’d asked, nice like! They looked at him like he just asked for a passport or an apartment up in the citadel for Prophet’s sake!

“You’re lucky we let you keep this decrepit office of yours at all, we are a modern justice force. There are standards to be kept!” They’d insisted, entrenched.

The rest of the building now looked more like a cheap shopping Center, white-lit and heartless. Here he spends many hours daydreaming of retirement and open plains. But often these dreams were washed away by anxious images of killers on the run, exposed death, smoky investigation quarters clouded with grey air and grey thoughts. Hours spent helpless, as clues and theories collage blackboards and workstations, as useful as so many wind gathered leaves.

On this day his thoughts are permeated with visions of escapes and he plays the killer on the run. The door resounds with a sharp rapping of the old dark wood, hard like steel. Blinking and stretching his eyelids Vitali Shenco's mind lurched slowly back to the land of the living as the door raps again.

‘Inspector Shenco, Inspector Shenco?’ the voice on the far side of the door quivers with nervous anxiety, fearful of waking the bear. Vitali drags the tip of his tongue about his sawdust lips and glances forlornly at the dusty pitcher sitting on his desk.

‘Come in!’ His tired old voice rumbles from the depths of his barrel chest.

‘Inspector Shenco, a body’s been discovered on 42nd and Fountain Street South, sir!’

The aid hands a slip of paper across the big crouching desk.

‘Will that be all Sir?’ He enquirers itching to leave the musty old office.

‘Hum, yes!’ Growls Shenco looking up from his orders.

Downstairs in the carpool, Shenco signs out a transport and drags his overtired, overweight, overworked frame in behind the wheel and eventually off to Fountain St. South.

“Friendly Ameregos family restaurant”, the sign blinks in faded red neon, underscored with, “where the customer gets more for his voucher”.

’I’d say he got a lot more for his voucher inspector!’ Detective Johnson said seeing Vitali reading the sign. Johnson leads him to the scene in the adjacent alleyway. Inside the cordon, rubber-gloved suits picked and teased; flash photography lit the cold prone stiff body in stark relief against a backdrop of split and spilled yellow refuse sacks. A stench hung in the air; cloth masks were being handed out at the barrier.

‘Fill me in Jay.’ Muttered Vitali as he waves away his mask; taps a tab out of a carton and sparks it up.

‘Refuse worker, one Paul Mathews, found him at 5:42, no sign of a struggle. No apparent wounding and frankly that yellowed crust on his skin makes me think he was poisoned.’ Johnson watches the big man stares at the body, tab clenched between his teeth. Vitali Shenco's strong round face set in a haggard slouch giving him a bulldog appearance while his grey-blue eyes flitter about the scene piercing through the hustle of activity around him, soaking it all in, grim determination. Years of slog and loss had hammered and crushed his once youthful frame into a crumbling cliff of a man, now several centimetres shorter than his former self; age had curved him so as to give him the appearance of a rearing bear. Shoulders curved forward, big arms draped through tattered sleeves by his side.

‘No flies.’ The words, barely spoken, nearly whispered. The tab, half-smoked, flicked to the ground. ‘I want this body quarantined immediately, bio-hazard only, everyone report for medicals now.’ Audible groans rise from the officers and aides at the scene.

‘Yeah I know it’s shit guys, but as Detective Johnson has just said we’re dealing with a possible toxic here, bagum, tagum, and burnum boys.’

In the transport back to the station, Vitali turns to his second in command.

'No flies Jay!’

‘What?’ Jay Johnson, eyes on the road, glances at Vitali.

‘There weren’t any flies Jay, you’d think a body that long gone, smelling that bad be riddled with blow flies.’

Jay stared out the window. ‘No, no flies Vitali.’ His day was over no more thinking required, no man.

Writing his reports well into the night Vitalis’ mind weaved scenario after scenario to explain the riddle of the ‘Amerigos’ body, each time his eyelids drifted south the image of a flash-lit young man slumped in a pile of trash manifest before him, sun-dried viscous leakage masking the face and hands lending a nightmare quality to the death. Rousing himself he grabs his coat from the back of the chair and heads home to feed the cat and chew some Darten to numb his aching self and send him off to sleep. His tired mind abuzz, droning as if aswarm with angry hornets. Later in his bedroom he lies alone staring up at the ancient wallpaper as it flakes dry, musty paper leaves defiantly before him.

An old moonlit bedroom, motionless, except for the slow raggedy purr from the scruffy flea-bitten cat at the foot of his bed. Slowly sleep takes him into a fitful night, death dreams a cold cancer of the heart, and the frigged fingers of loss. On the bedside table a young woman, now long lost, looks out of an old photograph beaming with joy at the cameraman. The cameraman gruffles in his sleep and unsettles the fidgety cat at his feet.

*(Sometimes we wish a day will never end, never-ending days are usually the ones we wish had never begun.) Fragment from “Morning Testaments” Ajar library, Desolate.

***

Dec: 18th Dr. Shipwater'd had a lovely day, even in the face of the overcast cold-steal sky. The bloated elephantine clouds had been lumbering in since lunchtime and now filled the heavens, worthy celebrants of the impending storm.

After a rather tasty start of French toast and, he wasn’t afraid to say, real coffee, he’d arrived at his first appointment bang-on 10 o’clock the receptionist was delighted to see him, she said.

“Delighted to see you, doctor!”

She pronounced the doctor part in such a way as to make him feel three meters tall and of course, she had such a pretty cleavage tucked into her stiff linen uniform he nearly asked her out for dinner but he didn’t have dinner with nurses.

-Prophet forsake me, I couldn’t be seen with a nurse, a receptionist, whatever would the club think… no…-He thought -…nurses are strictly for fun in the exam room-

Harold indolently flicked through his duty roster.

-First client of the day, the usual crap, amputee, post-traumatic stress disorder… faker…too many of those bastards survived the war. For fuck sake, it has been over more than six years now, get a grip of yourself-

Instead of the usual sitting there with his “listening face” set on two nods per-minute while scribbling pictures of himself in exotic locals, he actually found himself for the first time accepting that with his new pet project reaching its fruition he was soon to be in the position to make his daydreams a reality. A smile spread across his face like the sun rising on a cloudless summer’s morning until he was grinning from ear to ear like the proverbial cat.

His ears picked up a change, a sudden shift, sitting across from him the ‘Oh poor me’ client - was angrily demanding,

‘What the hell is so amusing?’

-Fuck him!- Dr. Shipwater thought.

‘Get over it dickhead, the war's looooong over you dumb prick!’

He’d stretched out the vowels on the ‘long’ to be sure his point was firmly made.

Harold had really enjoyed the ruckus that had ensued, no one had doubted his word for an instant and the pinhead ‘Oh poor me’ was forcefully prescribed a tranquilizer after he had jumped the desk and tried to throttle Harold.

-Funny…-Harold thought as the old warrior was bound up in a suppression suit.-… if he’d had both of his arms he could have really hurt me!-

By this time quite a crowd had gathered, with gawkers of every profession, doctor, nurse, and lunatic.

Harold claimed to be “a little shuck up” received the most adorable concerned looks from the gathered nurses and took the rest of the day off due to “mental stress”.

Now after a couple of elicit dips into his savings which had provided a slap-up-five-star lunch and dinner at the Imperial Hotel interposed with the most enjoyably-decedent shopping trip, he arrived at his house, meagre true but a house nonetheless, bedecked from head to foot in a new suit and shoes the rival of any that blow-hard Dr. Antony had, better in fact, he decided as he had better taste and style.

Making his way to his little office upstairs he contrived to catch himself in as many reflections as available to him, an old picture, -Beautiful suit!-

Chrome light fitting, - Handsome man! -

Into the office, music on, a bit of light work, he was whistling away to himself as he booted up the data block log from Jeffers St. onto his larger office terminal.

With a self-satisfied smile at the aromatic little plants growing in their secret bio-dome in the corner of his little office, he reached into his drawer and pulled out his rolling papers, and made himself a tight fat cigar from his latest crop while he waited for the download to finish.

He’d gotten the routine down pat over the weeks, and now could cover four days of footage in just over an hour scanning the images for the unusual, Peter was that predictable. Day one, the twelfth, the on screen calendar told him, awake, cries,

-What a sap…-

Harold thought, - nothing new here… afternoon writing...dinner more writing. This kid’s got real problems, the amount of crap he scribbles down… read a book or something dickhead-

Now December thirteenth, awake, cry, write, dinner, write,

-This is so dull-

Then he sees Peter fall from his desk,

-Again with the falling- Harold thought.

This had happened before giving Harold a minor heart attack until Peter had picked himself up and carried on like nothing had happened.

This time Peter continues to lie inert, fast forward, nothing, forward some more, still nothing, he begins to worry,

-no…- he thinks to himself,

-… be calm, he’s not dead…-

Forward, stop, forward, stop, forward, forward,

- …come on get up…-

Forward, the calendar blinks the fourteenth,

-…come on…- forward and stop,

-…there… he’s up…thank the fucking Prophet-.

A wobbly Peter crashes about the room on the terminal screen in front of Harold obviously disorientated,

-No, not out the door, shit! The door, he’s gone straight through the door!-

DR. Harold Shipwater's heart stopped and then with the onset of adrenaline it began to hammer so hard he had to physically propel himself away from his desk and the offending images.

‘He’s…gone.’ he gasped his eyes searching the screen for a hint of Peter.

‘No, no, no, no, no...’ he stopped speaking but the word wound circles in his drug-addled mind echoing like a bird of doom, frozen he sat caught between the need to act and the astonishing truth before him.

Jolted into action by the beep of the calendar marking the fifteenth, it had been nearly four days since he’d left the Jeffers St. Apartment. He ran, feet pounding the cold wooden floorboards on the landing of his little house, as his mind scrambles for options.

-If I can find him quick…- he thought desperately reaching for some spark of light in this hellish tunnel of trouble,

-…Dr. Antony never need know…if I can find him quick-

He arrived at the apartment on Jeffers St. twenty minutes later, having travelled distractedly true the driving snow; it was only when he had to stop at the Electro crossing did he notice he hadn’t turned on the wipers. Up until then, he had been leaning forward over the controls peering through the snow-mottled windshield like a manic.

Now standing on the street outside the apartment on Jeffers St. Harold Shipwater visualized entering to find Peter sitting there at his desk with that stupid confused look on his face. It wasn’t so, and so obviously not so that Harold Shipwater's life crashed around him in one momentous resounding mental cave in, the room was just as he had seen it on the terminal screen in his office not thirty minutes ago.

The door was broken open, the room cold and empty.

Peter was out there somewhere on the winter streets of Cloistergrad with no memory of how he got there, he was lost and now Harold Shipwater was too. All his dreams, hopes, and riches were invested in that little shit, now what could he do; it’s been days since Peter walked out that door, he could be anywhere.

Then he remembered the node, the ugly green node on the collar, he could track that and find Peter in no time. The relief that washed over him in that moment was one of the most delicious moments of his life and the last.

The data block showed that the device was only three-hundred meters away.

-Oh by the Prophet …Got you!-

Elation gripped him anew as he drove again through the dense cold of the night.

***

The restaurant was gently lit, just so, permitting one to see the splendour and expense which was mirrored in the prices that never appeared on the menu while the candlelight gave one only a hint of who was seated there and whom they were with.

Dr. R.V. Antony loved it and was never afraid to step into the pools of light to allow those, in the semi-darkness, to see that he too could afford to bring his lady friends here.

The dark oak panelled snug held him in rapture as he looked past his guest at the century-old masterpiece that hung over her shoulder,

-Truly a thing of beauty- He thought as he viewed the ancient painter's depiction of land that time now forgot.

The windmill in the scene instantly put him in mind of the men who built it and the craft and skill these primitive men had mastered, he fancied himself, as a surgeon, on a par even with the painter himself, a master of his craft and a creator of delicate art.

The spatial dynamics of the painting finally drew his eyes to rest on the girl before him, she was young, beautiful, immensely impressed with his every word, and best of all she was the daughter of a counsellor, and that made her precious. Through her in one way or another was an advance to power so he showed her his best impression of a warm and caring smile and her face lit up like a child's upon opening a present.

Inside he laughed with self-indulgent glee and his outward smile broadened.

‘What have you so happy tonight?’ she asked him, fishing for compliments oblivious to the pools of greed in the depths of his aging eyes.

‘Why, I am in the company of the most beautiful creature in the room of course,’

-I should have been a politician- He thought as her face bloomed to a radiant incandescence.

‘Would you like some Berdian wine my sweet?’

Berdian wine, her father only drank that in the company of international dignitaries.

‘Oh yes please!’

She replied sweeping her silky chestnut ringlet back off her shoulder to reveal the delicate smooth porcelain beauty of her neck and decolletage. Antony’s eyes rested a moment on the soft curves and shadows of her before signalling the servant for the wine.

-Tonight, tonight I will close the trap… and she will be mine to use when, where, and how I wish… it is that simple…- He thought.

***

Harold Shipwater dabbed at the perspiration on his brow with his beautiful silk Handkerchief, locked the door of the transport, and strode on purposefully, as he made his way fidgeting with the tracking device in his trembling hands to the front entrance of an abandoned squat crumbling on the corner of Jeffers St. and Thaún St.

The heavy old wooden door long-broken and agape, there was no one in the building and the absolute silence unnerved him, he rapidly turned corners and traversed corridors until at last the display screen told him that he had arrived.

The cold room was also without a soul, neither dead nor alive, he stopped in his tracks, face pale as a ghost; as he beheld the horror before him, there on the dirty floor lay the collar, crumpled and dog chewed.

‘Ah, what are you going to do now Harold?’ He asked himself, voice resounding in the large empty room as he stared transfixed at the scruffy green collar.

After a brief moment of indecision, he turned and ran from the building his heart once again pounding in his ears as he sought to continue his desperate search calling out Peters’ name, a frenzied hope fizzling,

-He will be here, any second now my call will be answered- visiting hospitals and hostels, checking if there were any ‘do you know this man’ posters outside the security-interface centers. He even searched beneath the bridges which were riddled with human flotsam,

To no avail.

The sun had long risen and that brought with it a realization, the cold sharp light of winter dispelled the fog to reveal the facts before him.

He had lost Peter.

He should call Dr. Antony, but he didn’t want to and anyway, he was exhausted and dirty from his nocturnal activities, he could smell the fear in his clammy musk and the liquor of street filth,

- lost is lost…go home get clean… eat…have a smoke and think, that’s the plan, “Be prepared!” he remembered the phrase, it fit.

He drove home slowly, exhausted.

Back at the house many hours later after much deliberation preparing his big lie, the wan midwinters’ sun was well set and with little sleep, Harold inexpertly punches a series of numbers into the jet-black data block.

‘Come on, come on...’ a horse breathless whisper. Fingers drum on the polished surface of the desk, index to little and back.

’Hello, Dr. Anthony…what,...'

Dam, message block, -please good Prophet-

'… yes, hello doctor, you should come down here straight away...the problem is…’

Blind panic began to rise in his chest as he prepared to say the following.

‘…I eh, the patient has left the grounds, um he’s lost, I’m at my house.’

His breath constricted, freezing him, his mind spinning once again words failed him.

“You cocked up Shipwater, you cocked up”,

The voice of his childhood tutor resounding in the ears of his imagination as his tired mind falls short at the first hurdle,

The handset replaced with a slow click-k.

***

Dr. Anthony sat with his young lady friend's hand in his as the servant arrived with the wine, two glasses, and just in time for a message alarm from Dr. Anthony’s’ data block.

Odd, Anthony thought a little annoyed; I left Shipwater strict instructions I was to be left alone today.

He accessed the block, privately playing Shipwaters' disjointed message through his sub-dermal earpiece, and the young Lady watched as the warm glow drained from his face leaving him ashen and strained.

‘I must go,..’

He appeared to want to say more but only stood, struggled to give her a smile, and left like a hunted animal.

She was left weeping and distraught over a glass of the finest wine she had ever tasted. Hanna’s aid Hurdin, Anthony’s newly self-appointed driver, guided the shaken doctor by the elbow into the back of a sleek midnight-blue Presner.

Locked in the back of the huge transport Dr. Antony began searching feverishly for files in the data block seeking some kind of information from Shipwater and when he saw the images of Peter crashing through the door onto Jeffers St. anger twisted in his gut to a boiling pool of acid.

Unbeknownst to him Cinovnik Hanna had had her aids Carak and Thormun searching for Peter Elworth long before Harold had even known he was missing.

*“ You can’t see them, but threads of time cling to me like the strings of a marionette, every move I make pulls on the events of my life, but am I the one pulling the strings?”

*(Taken from page 4 in the note book of Father Peter)