Broken Birds Ch. 01

Authors note. This is my first story and so constructive criticism is welcomed and wanted. I'm hoping to make this into a full book length but having to write around a full time job.

No sex in this chapter but it will come I promise.

*****

I'm a nobody, non-descript inconsequential. The sort of person you might pass on the street and never notice. This absolute blandness is not by design, is not my cover, it is born of my distinctly average life. At thirty years old my most distinctive feature is my baldness. My hair deciding that growing on top of my head was too much effort. I mean it's not like it had to overcome altitude sickness. I'm average height, average weight average in every measurable way.

So why have I done this? What infernal, angelic, entropic or I-don't-know-what force led me at this hour, away from my happy contented mediocrity across the river? Why am I here? I'm not safe here. I remember a feeling, a feeling of interest, of curiosity.

There was a girl, gorgeous, beautiful, enchanting, a party, flirting, was she flirting with me? I followed her here. I shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be here. She is too good for me. She is too good for anyone. I can't have her. I can't let them have her. No-one will have her.

*****

"The body was found by a jogger, he's pretty shaken up you know." The duty officer looked me over as he talked. I don't look like much I know certainly not like Roberts and Mal the hotshot detectives of Scotland Yard. But I am good no I'm better than good at what I do.

"He shouldn't have been here" The voice of the constable shook me from my reverie.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Whole place is a trap." He said casting his arm out to gesture to the wild blasted moorland. "Abandoned mines, peat bogs, sink holes. Everyone round here avoids this place at night"

"He wasn't local then?"

"Dunno yet. We'll need some luck with forensics, DNA or fingerprints most like."

"Can't anyone recognise him?"

"Not without his fucking head mate!"

*****

It had been another rough night, another failure another piece of human waste left on the moor. But this one had got to her. He had seemed so plain. So blank. She thought he might accept her. Be grateful even for this chance, but his sickness was worse. Hidden thoughts skulked in his mind, fermenting, multiplying turning him away from his natural path. She'd scrubbed herself clean several times. Trying in vain to clean him from her body. She hated, hated him for his sickness. Hated her mother for dying, leaving her alone here. Hated her father for being ... well for just being him, and she hated humans in general. Why couldn't they be more, more than the base mud from which they were made? More than animals, individuals had done so much, The Mona Lisa, La Danse Macabre, Swan Lake so why, why were they all so utterly fucking wrong?

*****

Forensics had now been and the story got even weirder, this murder because as far as we could tell this was a murder, had all the hallmarks of CSI New York or some horror film narrative, but this wasn't Hollywood this was Northern England and I'm not a genius rookie cop with millions to spend chasing a psychopath. I'm a police detective with limited resources a naked corpse without a head, no blood trail no signs of struggle. His DNA hadn't come back with a match nor had his fingerprints matched in our database. He had no tattoos, a boring blood type and his body was distinct in its averageness. In two months we had no matching missing person's reports, no wanted criminals we could match to him. Two months of searching everything just to find out who the victim was and we had drawn a blank. Of our killer we knew even less. The decapitation was clean almost surgical, no prints on the body. We had no blood trail telling us where he was killed, no fibres on the body to say how he was moved. We had no clues at all and then the autopsy came back to tell us he had died of sudden cardiac arrest! What had happened here? Had he been kidnapped and died of a heart attack? Had he been frightened to death then decapitated? Everything pointed to a violent psychopath but why?

I'm supposed to be finding not only the sick fuck that took his head and possibly killed him but still don't know who our victim is. The corpse, cold frozen meat in the mortuary, could tell us nothing was he on the run, mentally ill, among the millions of homeless in the country. I need a break in this case, something to let me in to this mess.

*****

The wind was vicious again tonight screaming across the moor, battering through every nook and cranny. Why was she out again tonight? What force brought her here again to this grey blasted town, this wasteland, this frightful desolate backwater of a nowhere? It had been months since she had been to this spot and she had been scratching out her sick existence since.

The dreams were back late at night hiding from the dark she dreamt of Him, never his face, never any detail, nothing to tell her who he was. In all the dream he was a saviour protecting her, a barrier against the dark forces doing battle in her mind. She knew she could have any man she wanted. She'd been courted by millionaires and gangsters, lawyers and conmen, doctors and thugs. The highest elite and the lowest scum. Yet nothing felt right nothing gave her the safety she wanted.

The dreams led her here, back to where she had been attacked, here on the moorland grey and lifeless. She had heard about the murder, of course she had but she couldn't find the link in her mind. She had no knowledge other than what she had seen on TV and in the papers. Could it have been her? Had she killed a man? She didn't know and that terrified her. Time and again she considered handing herself in. Confessing everything, but what was everything? Instead she was back here on this wasteland sat in the driving wind crying to the world.

*****

I don't know what took me back there, some twist of fate, some Deus Ex Machina or just coincidence. I'd been back many times hoping for some flash of inspiration. An elementary my dear Watson moment, an epiphany. Looking for something to become clear out of the tragic indecipherable story. This time however I wasn't alone up here. She was young about twenty three to twenty five years old. Anorexia thin, face drawn and gaunt. Long greasy black hair whipping about in the gale force winds. Her clothes stylish but coated in mud and filth her top too thin for this inclement weather.

I approached her cautiously not wanting to scare her off.

"Hello." I said quietly "bad night to be up here on the moor."

"I think I killed him" That brought me up short.

"What?"

"I think I killed him, I think I was here, I don't remember." I looked at her again, frail, worn and broken. Trying to assess was she on drugs, was she unbalanced or could this be the break we needed?

"What happened?" I switched on my voice recorder hoping against hope that it would pick up the conversation through the wind. Hoping this was a real break in the case.

"I remember his face, his eyes watching me. He followed me. I Ran. He wasn't nice. He was Evil, Black inside. He wanted to hurt me, I was scared." She was staring blankly ahead. Tears running from her eyes. I sat and listened as she spoke through the roaring of the wind.

"He chased me here. He grabbed me. I felt him, his hatred, his evil. He was a bad man, he wouldn't let me go. I couldn't escape him, I think I killed him." None of this made sense. There was no sign of a struggle No marks at all on the body. He had died from a heart attack and then his head had been removed surgically. Had she met the killer? Could this broken woman have killed this cleanly?

I needed help. This was not an area I could help in. She was damaged, broken, something had happened to her and I couldn't leave her here. She may be a suspect or a victim, she could just be damaged and holding her hand out for help. I called Samantha, she was assigned to our station to help victims and the vulnerable in emotional situations. Besides this she was also someone I could trust. She wasn't pleased to be out on a night like this but came when I explained what was going on.

"I've got someone coming" I turned back to this wild woman. "I don't want to scare you she'll be here shortly." She looked up at me now for the first time. People have looked at me before. I'd spent time learning all the looks I thought I would need. I knew the looks that usually meant someone was lying, the look that meant they were angry, and the look that meant they were sad. I have never seen a look like the one this woman gave me. I felt like she was looking through me at all my secrets and accepting them, as though my whole life was laid bare for her. It was an innocent look that burned with desire. That one look nearly sent me running to the nearest airport taking myself as far away as I could. It scared me. I steeled myself, I had to stay for now but the faster I could get this sorted away the better.

*****

It was him! The man from her dreams was here. On seeing his face the dreams she had been tortured by for years coalesced into his face. His body was the one she had studied in those dreams. She needed him to stay, she needed to be around him. As she saw him she felt safe for the first time in years. Safe for the first time since her father had left ripping her world apart. She grabbed him pulling him down to her frantically gripping him and holding him close. She felt the dam break and all the sorrow she had been holding back flood out. Big ugly sobs racked her body as she held him.

*****

I realised I know absolutely nothing about this woman, this wild thing that had grabbed me. Holding on to me like the last log from a shipwreck and she was drowning.

"What's your name?" I asked as gently as I could through the roaring wind. Hoping my voice would not betray my fear.

"Elana."

"Where do you live Elana?"

"The Southbank." This was the extent of our talk as I heard the sound of an engine approaching on the track.

Samantha appeared from the well-used Land Rover and seeing me half crouched on the ground with a young female form wrapped tightly around me, burying under my coat against the wind, she approached carefully.

"Elana, my friend is here to help you." Elana pulled herself up to look at me through her mass of unkempt hair.

"I'm Samantha. I'm going to help you as much as I can." Samantha gently leaned over me to touch Elana's shoulder. "Can we get you out of this wind?"

Elana turned to face me directly eyes pleading.

"Don't leave me. Stay with me. You'll keep me safe." I looked to Samantha for help, I'm not a social person I like absolute facts, hard evidence. Emotions confuse the hell out of me. I learnt to read faces, movements and tones, but for all that I can't process them properly. Samantha gave me a slight nod and motioned me towards the car. Slowly and carefully we moved over the treacherous ground to get Elana into the car. Realising that she might panic if separated from me Samantha guided me into the back seats so Elana could sit holding me.

*****

As she sat in the car holding on to this stranger she somehow knew. Elana felt the warmth of the car's interior start to warm through her frozen body. She knew that her saviour had called someone and that she was going somewhere away from the moor. They told her they would help. She didn't know how they could. She was a killer, wasn't she? The gaps fit, everyone she had got close to had died hadn't hey? She knew though, down to her soul, that that could not happen to this man. He would save her from the dark dreams and horrors of her past.

*****

Softly gently the warmth of the car lulled Elana to sleep. I felt her grip on me loosen as her mind slipped away. Turning to Samantha I asked

"What will we do with her?"

"She's attached to you at the moment. If you leave it could cause serious problems."

"Can't we take her to hospital?"

"Do you believe that she's a killer?"

"I don't know about that. Right now no, but that's not the point can't we take her to the hospital?"

"Why?" I hated this and Samantha knew it. Part of the way I am means I need definite answers to questions. Answering a question with a question feels wrong and it frustrates me and sets me on edge.

"Answer the question Samantha" I snapped. "I can't cope with all this. None of it makes sense. Surely the hospital would look after her better than me!"

Samantha grimaced at me

"They'll lock her in a room. Sedate her maybe. If they think she isn't going to top herself they'll push her back out on the street. It's Friday night so the station is full and besides so far we have no reason to arrest her."

"I don't want her at my house. She scares me." I heard Samantha snort back a laugh. Then she looked at me in the rear view mirror and seeing my face stopped herself short.

"Well she can't come back to the officer's quarters with me." She looked pensive for a moment

"We could use the safe house on York Road. Let me radio the station."

While Samantha was radioing through the request to the desk sergeant to clear the use of the safe house, I got out my phone to check my messages and emails. As usual there was nothing new about the case and loads of the spam and crap that normally comes in. I started to think about Elana and the case. Could this be the break we needed? Or was she just another complication? Could she be the killer or another victim? Was she even related to my case?

What did I know? This emaciated woman had turned up at the site of a brutal murder, saying that she had killed ... who? Did she even know who we were looking for? So far I had nothing and we were seriously in danger of shutting the case down. I'd been assigned this case because it was what I do best. I find patterns and clues where others missed them. I've closed cases with an empty room to go on. Found killers by the washing powder they used on their clothes. Located gangsters by the shopping they bought at a supermarket, but this was like nothing I had seen before.

"We're here Rainman." Samantha whispered to me from the front of the car. As we manoeuvred the sleepy Elana into the house Samantha took over and settled her into one of the bedrooms. Almost forcing her into pyjamas and then the bed. Once she was settled to her satisfaction Samantha returned to the small barely furnished front room.

"Right David, time to talk. What the fuck is going on here? Why were you up at the moor anyway?"

"I needed to see if I'd missed anything. I can't fuck up this case Samantha. There has to be something I've missed."

"For fucks sake David its Sam. Not Samantha. Do you really think you can do better than SOC, Forensics and the whole fucking station that turned out to scour that bloody moorland?"

"Of course not, but it's my job to find whatever it is that's been missed. We can't let a killer like this loose. We've got a body with no head Sam and no idea who he is or what happened to him. It's my job to make this place safe from them."

"We all signed up for that David, but some of us realise that we aren't superhuman we have limits. You've been chasing this for so long that you can't see anything else. Have you even slept?"

"Yes. Of course I've slept."

"How Much?"

"Two or three hours a night, but that's enough. I've got to find whatever it is I've missed."

"David, you are burning out. You've become impossible to work with. You're not thinking straight and you are no use to anyone right now. So now I'm taking over your life and the life of that young girl suspect or not." With that Samantha pushed me into the bedroom.

As soon as my head hit the pillow I was fast asleep. The dreams coming fast. I was running across the moor in the dark. Some horrible entity chasing me, an unending fear driving my muscles on. Stumbling, almost falling. The blackness chasing me, catching me, tearing my soul from my body...

"David, wake up. David! David!" The voice broke through yanking me back to reality. I was on the bed, damp now. My god had I pissed myself in my sleep? No. no, this was sweat, the nightmare again. Someone was here. At the end of the bed. Who was that? It was Samantha dressed now in police issue sweats and a hoody.

"Jesus Christ David, What was that?"

"I'm. It. I..."

"Is that why you're not sleeping? I looked around the room. My bedsheets now a complete mess on the floor. I grabbed a sheet to cover myself.

"I'm sorry, so sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. I'll ... I'll go back to mine Sorry."

"No David you shouldn't be alone right now. I told you I was looking after you ..." Suddenly Elana burst into the room. Wild eyed she dove straight for the bed where I lay.

"You're still here. I heard screams."

"It was a nightmare Elana. Just a nightmare"

"You have them too?" She looked into my face staring deep into my eyes. "They come every night, I can't run. I need you here. With you they can't get me." I looked at Samantha begging for some help, some advice. She just nodded at me and left the room. I was completely lost here. I pulled the damp sheets back over me and Elana. Stroking her back gently to calm her. Slowly we drifted back to sleep.

*****

She felt safe, warm. He was holding her, gently. Soothing her, his touch tentative, shy. Stroking her back. As she drifted to sleep, for the first time in years she had no fear of the dreams. As the dream took her she was back on the moor but the very moor itself was different. Greener, lighter, full of life. As she looked around she saw him he was stood at the centre of a patch of green grass. She got a sense of hope and love emanating from him. As she approached he turned to face her and smiled. A sense of wellbeing washed over her.

She woke as the sun came streaming into the room. Lighting the bare walls with a soft golden glow. She felt him stir as she moved and took time to watch him wake. His boyish face changing as she watched. Years of worry and hardship etching themselves onto his brow and around his eyes as his watchfulness took hold. She wondered what had happened in his short life to wear him down like this.

"What's your name?" She asked when he seemed awake enough to speak.

"David, David Suter."

"Where am I David?"

"A police safe house on York Road."

"Am I under arrest? If I am then why are you in bed with me?"

"No. You're not under arrest. You came in my room last night after a nightmare and fell asleep here." He didn't mention that it was his nightmare that had woken her. He didn't know why. "We should get some breakfast." He said helping her off the small bed and guiding her through to the small kitchen. Samantha was sat at the table, Elana's meagre belongings laid out in front of her.

"So you're Elana Caplan?" Samantha spoke softly keeping any accusation out of her voice.

"Yes" Elana took the seat at the small table next to Samantha.

"I'm Samantha Watkins. So what happened to you Elana?" As Samantha gently probed and talked to her David moved to the cupboards looking for something to make them for breakfast.

*****

I decided on omelettes after checking with the ladies if it was ok. I find cooking therapeutic. A mixture of art and science. I thought as I cooked about this strange turn of events that had led to me being here in a strange house. With two women waking up next to one of them. I'm not celibate but my condition makes dating hard if not impossible and the way I am usually means that I don't make friends. I'm used to it by now, at twenty nine years old I've given up on fantasies of love and marriage. Then this happens and I wake up next to ... who? Who was this woman? Was she a suspect, a killer, a danger to my life? Or was she a victim, was I taking advantage of a vulnerable woman? Prescribing feelings to mania? And what about Samantha? I was closer to her than anyone, but is she a friend? I had no experience of this. I resolved to talk to Samantha as soon as I could. In my mind the worst that could happen was that I would be alone again. A condition I knew and accepted.