Death Day (13 page)

    Hayes emerged from the duty room carrying a steaming mug of coffee. He handed it to Lambert who smiled.

    'I could do with something stronger, Vic.'

    The sergeant grinned and pulled a silver flask from the pocket of his tunic. He unscrewed the cap and poured a small measure of brown liquid into the Inspector's mug. Then he repeated the procedure with his own.

    'Purely medicinal, sir,' he said.

    Lambert smiled broadly and drank a couple of mouthfuls.

    From down the corridor they could still hear the frightful noises coming from Mackenzie's cell.

    'He's mad,' said Hayes, flatly.

    'I hope so,' said Lambert, enigmatically. 'I really do hope so.'

    Hayes looked puzzled.

    The door leading from the annexe opened and both men looked up. It was only constables Ferman and Jenkins arriving for night duty.

    'What's all the noise?' asked Ferman.

    'Never mind that,' snapped Hayes. 'Just get on with your job.'

    Ferman raised two fingers as he walked past, making sure that he was behind Hayes when he did it. The two men disappeared into the duty room.

    Kirby walked in, his black bag clutched firmly in his hand. He nodded curtly.

    'About fucking time,' snapped Lambert, impatiently. He hurried out from behind the enquiry counter and led the doctor down towards the cell.

    'My receptionist told me you called,' explained Kirby. 'I'd been out on an emergency.'

    'Well, we've got an emergency here, right now,' growled Lambert.

    Kirby caught him by the arm. 'Look, Tom, my responsibilities are to my patients. I'm a G.P. first and foremost, a bloody police doctor second. Understand?'

    The Inspector held his gaze for a moment. 'Listen to that,' he said, inclining his head towards the cell.

    Kirby heard the sounds of pandemonium and frowned. He followed Lambert to the cell door and peered through the peephole. Mackenzie was hanging from the bars with his talonlike hands, blood from his injured limb pouring down his arm.

    'He broke the light bulb,' explained Lambert, 'the light drives him crazy. It seems to cause him pain.'

    'How long has he been like this?' asked Kirby, not taking his eyes from the hole.

    'Since it got dark,' said the Inspector, flatly. 'What can you do?'

    Kirby let the flap slide back into position, covering the hole. 'Nothing. If I give him a shot of something there's no guarantee it'll knock him out. That's assuming I can get close enough to administer it in the first place.'

    'There must be something you can give him,' snapped Lambert.

    'I've just told you,' said Kirby, his tone rising slightly. 'I've got Thorazine in here, but there's no way of knowing if it'll work and I, for one, don't intend going in there with him like that.'

    The two men stood silently for a moment, looking at one another. Then Kirby said, more gently, 'Just leave him. I'll look at him in the morning. If he's calmed down.'

    'And if he hasn't?'

    The doctor peered through the peephole again, 'This will hold him won't it?' He banged on the metal door.

    Lambert nodded, 'Yeah.' There was a note of tired resignation in his voice.

    'I suggest we both go home, Tom. If anything more happens during the night…' The sentence trailed off and he shrugged.

    Lambert touched the metal door gendy, listening to the bellowing and crashing coming from inside.

    'I just hope it does hold him,' he said, quietly.

    

    

    Lambert lay on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling. Outside, the wind whispered quietly past the windows. A low, almost soothing whoosh, which occasionally grew in power and rattled the glass in its frame, as if reminding people of its power. But, at the moment, it hissed softly past the dark opening.

    The clock on the bedside table ticked its insistent rhythm, sounding louder than usual in the stillness of the night. The luminous hands showed that it was after three in the morning.

    Lambert exhaled and closed his eyes. Images and thoughts sped through his mind with dizzying speed.

    Mackenzie. The disappearance of Gordon Reece. The medallion.

    The medallion.

    He had shown it to Debbie earlier on and she had confirmed his own suspicions that the inscriptions were, indeed, Latin. Well, the central one at any rate. The gibberish around the rim of the circlet foxed her too. She said that she would try to find out what the inscriptions meant. There were reference books in the library which might tell them. He had dismissed the idea, telling her that there was probably no significance in it anyway. But something nagged at the back of his mind. Something unseen which had plunged teeth of doubt into his mind and had held on as surely as a stoat holds a rabbit.

    He sat up, trying not to disturb Debbie. She was asleep beside him, her breathing low and contented. As regular as the ticking of the clock.

    Every minute he expected the phone to ring. To hear Hayes telling him that Mackenzie had broken out. Lambert dismissed the thought. That was impossible. The cell door was a foot thick, the bars of the windows embedded two feet into the concrete. He couldn't possibly get out. Lambert swallowed hard and ran a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and brought his knees up, resting his head on them.

    Again the thoughts came back. Alien thoughts with no answer.

    Mackenzie's sensitivity to light. His eyes (if that was the word). The frenzy which overcame him during night-time. The mutilation of the three victims. Why had the eyes been torn out?

    'Oh Christ.'

    He said it out loud this time, cursing himself as he heard Debbie moan in her sleep. He watched her sleeping form for a moment, worried that he had woken her. When she didn't move he returned to his previous position. Head bowed on his upraised knees.

    'What's wrong, Tom?'

    Her voice startled him and he turned to see her looking up at him.

    'I'm sorry I woke you,' he said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.

    'What is it?' she asked, her voice gentle.

    He sighed, 'I can't sleep.'

    She snuggled closer to him and he felt the warmth of her body, naked beneath the sheets. 'What were you thinking about?' she wanted to know.

    'This and that,' he said, smiling wanly.

    'Don't give me that crap,' she said, forcefully, squeezing his hand until he made a cry of mock pain. 'It's this business with Mackenzie isn't it?'

    'Debbie, I've never seen anything like it. He's like a wild animal. But it only seems to be at night. Jesus, I don't know what the hell is going on.'

    'You know that medallion? I was thinking, why don't you take it to an antique dealer? Old Mr Trefoile in the town would be able to date it for you; he might even be able to decipher the inscriptions.'

    Lambert nodded. He was silent for a while, rubbing his eyes. He felt a hand trace its way from the top of his knee to his thigh. Debbie pressed herself closer to him, her hand finally brushing through his pubic hair and closing around his flaccid penis. She looked up at him, surprised.

    'You really are worried,' she said.

    He grinned and she tried to pull her hand away but he held it there, feeling the warmth of her fingers as they stroked, coaxing him to hardness. When he was fully erect, she ran her index finger from the tip of his penis to the testicles, now drawn up tightly with excitement. She cupped them briefly before returning to his swollen shaft. He moaned softly as she closed her hand around him and began rubbing gently. As her movements became more insistent he lay back, thrusting his hips towards the stroking hand. At the same time, he sought the wetness between her legs, his fingers teasing her clitoris before plunging deeper into the oozing cleft of her vagina. She drove herself hard against him, finally pulling him onto her, his hard organ sliding easily into her.

    A moment later they climaxed savagely and clung to one another long after the sensations had died away. He rolled off and lay on his back, both of them panting. She leant across and kissed him, eventually falling asleep with her head on his chest. He stroked her hair with his hand, feeling its soft silkiness beneath his fingers.

    He returned to staring at the ceiling, wishing that sleep would come, but the hands of the clock pointed to four-fifteen before he finally drifted off into peaceful oblivion.

    

    

    Kirby stood up as Lambert entered the room. He had been sitting on a chair next to the cell bed on which Mackenzie lay. Mackenzie was still, his eyes closed, arms by his sides. Sunlight streamed in through the small window in the wall of the cell. Constable Ferman was also in the room, standing at the far end of the bed and looking down at the body of Mackenzie, who was now securely tied down with thick bands of hemp.

    'Morning, Tom,' said Kirby.

    The inspector nodded a greeting and looked down at the immobile figure of Mackenzie.

    'What happened?' he asked in awe.

    Kirby motioned to Ferman and the constable coughed, clearing his throat as if he were about to make a public address.

    'Well sir,' he began, 'I was sitting out there this morning, listening to all the din going on in here and, well, about five o'clock everything went quiet. I looked through the viewing slot and Mackenzie was lying on the floor.'

    'Dawn was at five o'clock,' Kirby clarified.

    'I waited for about fifteen minutes,' continued Ferman. 'He didn't move, so I came in, put him on the bed and tied him down again.'

    'The light,' said Lambert.

    Kirby nodded. 'The darkness triggers him off, the light shuts him down. This man is like a light sensitive machine, only, if you'll forgive the flippancy, his mechanism is working in reverse. He comes alive during the darkness and…' he shrugged, 'switches off during the daylight.' Lambert looked down at Mackenzie's body, his mouth almost dropping open in awe.

    'His vital signs are practically nil,' said Kirby. 'The heart has slowed to less than forty beats a minute, the pulse and blood pressure are so faint I could hardly get readings. He's in a torpor.'

    'What the hell is that?' snapped Lambert.

    'Coma if you like.'

    'What do we do?'

    'I wish I knew.'

    'You're a doctor for Christ's sake, John; you must have some ideas.'

    'Look. During the night, he's fine.'

    Lambert cut him short. 'Fine? He's a psycho during the bloody night.'

    Kirby waved away the policeman's protests.

    'What I meant was, his life signs are all in order. There's nothing wrong with him bodily.'

    'Apart from the fact that he's a maniac with the strength of ten men,' said Lambert, his voice heavy with scorn.

    There was an awkward silence then Kirby spoke again.

    'I think the problem is in his brain, not his body. It's psychosis of some sort, but we don't know why it's triggered by darkness.'

    'This is getting us nowhere,' said Lambert impatiently. 'I want to know what we have to do. This is going to happen again tonight, right? I want an answer quick, John. I'm asking you for a medical answer to this problem. And keep it simple.'

    'You've got a number of alternatives, Tom. I either pump him full of Thorazine now and we wait and see if it keeps him out during the night, we keep him locked in here until someone qualified can look at him, or…' He hesitated.

    'Or what?' Lambert demanded.

    'We give him an E.E.G.'

    Lambert looked puzzled.

    'It's an Electroencephalogram. It tests brain waves.'

    'I know what it does,' snapped Lambert, 'I don't see how it would help.'

    'It might tell us why the darkness triggers off this savagery at night, why he's terrified of light. That's my last theory.'

    The policeman nodded. 'Where would it be done?'

    'There's a unit in the hospital in Wellham, about twenty miles from here. I know the specialist in charge of it. If I get in touch with him now, we could have this done before nightfall.'

    'Do it,' said Lambert and Kirby scuttled out of the room.

    The Inspector looked down at the body of Mackenzie and then at the wrecked cell.

    Ferman coughed. 'What if it doesn't work, sir?' he asked tentatively.

    Lambert looked at him for a moment, searching for an answer, then turned and walked out.

    

    

    Lambert felt the need to shield his eyes, even though he stood behind a screen of tinted glass. The light inside the examination room was blinding, pouring down from four huge fluorescent banks.

    Mackenzie was strapped to a trolley in the centre of the room and, as the policeman watched, two men dressed in white overalls undid the straps and lifted him onto a table. They hurriedly secured him again and one of them, a tall man with blond hair, pulled each of them to ensure they were tight enough. The man turned towards the glass partition behind which stood Lambert, Kirby and Dr Stephen Morgan. The man raised a thumb and Morgan nodded.

    He was in his forties. What people like to refer to as 'well-preserved,' for he looked barely older than thirty. He had a carefully groomed moustache which seemed as though it had lost its growing strength when it reached the corners of his mouth and drooped downwards. His blue eyes were obscured somewhat by thin tinted glasses which he removed and began polishing with a handy tissue.

    Lambert looked back into the examination room. Mackenzie was now lying, apparently unconscious, on a hinged couch which could be adjusted by a large screw on the side and, as he watched, the intern with the blond hair twisted it so that Mackenzie was propped up slightly. His mouth opened briefly, as if he were going to protest, then it closed tightly. A tiny dribble of yellowish saliva escaped and ran down his chin.