Persona - A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (33 page)

‘What…are you doing, Ben?’

Ben stared psychotically. ‘Ben is history, d’you understand?’ He squeezed Dave’s throat tight. Dave nodded. ‘Ben is dead. Mention him again and I’ll snap your throat like a fucking twig. Clear?’

‘Yes-’

‘If he must be referred to, you will say, “When you were sick”. He was the weakness I suffered for twenty wasted years. Now I’m alive.’

Desperate to cooperate, Dave croaked, ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Ryan.’ He eased his grip.

‘Are you still my friend?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then will you stop hurting me?’

Ryan laughed and let go. ‘You’re funny, Dave.’ He returned to the sofa.

Dave gently patted his neck and coughed his throat clear. ‘What the fuck is this about, Ryan? Why did you strangle me?’

‘I told you. It’s the only time I’ll ever attack you. You’re a mate.’

Shaken and disorientated, Dave sat down on a rickety chair. ‘I think I need a shit.’

Ryan laughed again. ‘So how are you, Dave?’

Dave gawked at him. ‘Are you serious? You nearly killed me, you nutcase!’

‘I warned you. I’m deadly serious. Never mention my former identity to anyone.’

‘May I ask why not?’

‘Yes. I’ve been blind and stupid. Now I’m awake. Now life is fucking beautiful.’ His smile was wide and disturbing.

‘Why did you break up with Jenny?’

Looking puzzled, Ryan stared at him. ‘Who’s Jenny?’

‘She was your girlfriend.’

‘Never had a girlfriend.’

Dave took a deep breath of rancid air. ‘I understand – you’ve just been born. How come you know me, then?’

‘If I hadn’t retained anything from my sickness, I wouldn’t be able to talk would I? I’ve kept what I need.’

‘Well, it’s nice to know you need me.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far. You’re a mate I didn’t want to leave behind.’

‘So, Jenny is left behind?’

‘Yep.’

‘But I thought-’

‘It’s irrelevant,’ Ryan interrupted. ‘Forget about it. It’s over.’

‘What about Geoff?’

Ryan looked away. ‘I heard.’

‘You heard?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Did you cripple him?’

‘He’s my friend. How could you even think that?’

Dave leaned forward. ‘Did you do it to him when you were sick?’

Ryan glared at him. ‘I told you he’s my friend. How could that be so if I’d done that to him?’

Dave plucked up his courage and said, ‘Maybe you overreacted and now feel guilty and want things to be the way they were before.’

‘No,’ Ryan shouted. ‘You’re talking shit and it’s pissing me off, because Geoff’s my friend and I can’t believe what happened to him.’

Dave could see Ryan was upset, but itched to pursue this line of questioning. ‘Why didn’t you visit him? And why didn’t you go to his funeral?’

Funeral! Ryan turned away to hide his reaction. Had he killed him? Had the cunt died from his injuries? He had to find out…

‘I couldn’t bear to see him like that – it would’ve broken me up and I wouldn’t have recovered. It’s such an injustice…’ He scraped his fingers through his hair. ‘What was the actual cause of death?’

‘He threw himself off the hospital roof, Ryan,’ Dave said bluntly. ‘I’m sure you can imagine.’

Suicide! Ryan felt demoralised. Death was too easy. That released the cunt from the suffering…

‘How did you find out?’ Dave asked.

‘When he didn’t return home for weeks I knew something was wrong, so I called the hospitals.’

‘Why did he leave America early?’

‘I don’t know. Stop talking about my sickness. It’s winding me up’

Disgusted, Dave said, ‘How can you be so self-centred? Geoff killed himself because he was paralysed!’

A jolt of energy swept through Ryan. He hadn’t called the hospital, but had known he’d crippled the cunt for life. Hearing it confirmed by Dave pleased him. No fucking, too - what a bonus! Such a shame the cunt was dead.

‘It’s sad, but I warned you, Dave. Don’t make me angry. I’m different now. I can’t restrain myself anymore.’

‘You weren’t very good at it before.’

Dave stood up, concerned about both Ryan and his own safety. Something had happened to Ben, something very bad. It was more than a break-up. Though Ben had been madly in love with Jenny, this was not a normal reaction to a separation. He knew Geoff’s injuries had to be connected. Maybe Geoff had slept with her. That would have been enough for Ben to unleash an attack of the magnitude Geoff had received, but if Ben had crippled Geoff, why had Geoff not named him as the suspect? He’d been disabled for life – surely he would have wanted justice? Or had he been bound to loyalty? Loyalty after suffering that? He had chosen to take his own life because of his injuries… This line of thinking raised more discrepancies – Ben and Geoff were good friends. Dave doubted Geoff would have done the dirty on him. And Jenny was a wonderful girl who was deeply in love with Ben and knew it was reciprocated. Her two-timing him just wasn’t feasible. No way could Dave entertain that possibility. So what happened?

During his service he’d seen psychopaths, and ‘Ryan’ had the symptoms of one now. It had always been a threat. Ben had been a frightened, scarred child when Dave’s family had taken him in, and he had adjusted to his new life quickly. But though just a child himself, Dave had still been acute enough to sense an underlying aggression in his friend. That anger had truly surfaced during their late teens when Ben had gruesome fights in pubs. They stopped when Ben started dating Jenny, and Dave had hoped the violence had been consigned to the past.

Now it was back, and Dave’s deepest fears had materialised. He choked back tears, feeling emotional about Ben’s mental decline. He felt guilty that he cared a lot less about Geoff’s passing, but Ben was a lifelong friend and Dave could never be closer to anyone else.

He looked at the ‘transformation’ in front of him and shivered. What could he do when he didn’t know the cause? Tash was untraceable. Jenny wouldn’t speak with him and had obviously been hurt too. How? How could he find out if no one would talk to him? Jesus, it was his day off, yet he felt like he was working harder than he ever had.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘Will you visit Geoff’s grave?’

Ryan sprang up and launched himself at Dave, stopping just short of contact. Dave backed against the wall and held up his hands in surrender.

‘Ryan, please don’t…’

‘Geoff is in my fucking past,’ he rasped. ‘We’re finished. I don’t want to hear about him. I don’t fucking care that it’s selfish and I don’t want you whinging about it, or linking me to that spineless cunt, Ben. When you talk about me, Ryan, you’re talking about a new friend you’ve made. Understood?’

‘Y-yes,’ Dave stuttered.

‘We start again,’ Ryan roared, veins throbbing in his head. ‘Is that understood?’

Dave nodded and then briskly left the flat, leaving Ryan seething in the lounge. He took the stairs instead of the lift, afraid of being enclosed. He gasped for breath when he left the building, and then staggered along the street.

A psychopath, without a doubt. Dave knew it would haunt him for a long time. No matter what Ben did, he couldn’t desert him. His thoughts of Ben made him flinch as he recalled the ferocious eyes penetrating him when he’d been pinned against the wall. He had to get ‘Ryan’ into his head.

38

Sitting in the armchair of his twelfth-floor flat, Andre glared at the city through the window. Yesterday John-Paul had returned to the woods, and now he was in hospital bandaged up like a mummy. Jen was hysterical. The idiot had deserved what he got, but Jen did not.

Zen - real name Ben Salks - was extremely competent. He’d tuned into John-Paul’s psyche, located his weakness, and then exploited it.

Andre felt a constant buzz about this job. Previous targets had been easy - purely physical, lacking subtlety. He hoped to meet his match now. He was in his prime, as fit as he had ever been and at his most proficient. How long would that last? The time would come when age would hinder him. He had five years left, maybe ten, but after that he’d have to take a back seat, so he wanted to soak up this exhilaration while it lasted.

He lifted his mug from the table and took a sip of his coffee. Stuffed heads of deer, large cats and even a bear were mounted against the walls of his flat on thick oak plaques, each beside a photo of Andre posing next to the carcass with his rifle.

Behind Jen’s despair and fear, Andre could see a happy girl desperate to break free from that misery. Though John-Paul cared for her, he was self-important. The ludicrous decision to revisit Knoll Wood had been a grievous error. Straight into Zen’s trap. Perfect…

And now things were worse. Jen had let the law shoulder the responsibility for John-Paul’s life, which, although dramatically reducing the threat to her health during that incident, meant that now the police were involved. Zen was wanted for attempted murder.

The CID offered counselling, round-the-clock home surveillance, and after Jen had helped create a photofit of Zen, they pasted it all over town. But they couldn’t offer guarantees, and Andre knew their involvement was a severe burden rather than blessing. Yes, they could protect her while she stayed at home, and while the guard remained there she would not be harmed. But Zen would simply go to ground and return when the commotion died down. That meant Andre may have to wait too, and the sudden interest in Zen could compromise Andre when he killed him. When Zen had been a nobody, his death would have made little impact. Now it would be front-page news and that risked Andre’s exposure.

He’d thought about declining the job, but had rejected the option. It was a quality job he would relish. And Jen deserved to be avenged. She was suffering for a mistake she’d made over ten years ago. She hadn’t learnt how Ben had found out about it until he returned five years later as Zen, and revealed that he’d tasted Geoff’s semen in her mouth...

Zen had decided that five years was a sufficient amount of time for her to punish herself for her mistake, before he’d intervene. Jen had then learnt from police that Geoff had committed suicide, after sustaining injuries that had left him paralysed from the waist down. Obviously Zen had crippled him, but, bizarrely enough, Geoff had not named him as the suspect.

When Zen had returned three months ago, Jen explained to John-Paul - who knew nothing about Zen - that she had slept with someone else while they were dating ten years ago – that was all she had told him. She was paranoid about losing John-Paul, and feared that disclosing the revelation that she’d had sex with her boyfriend’s friend and sucked his penis while her boyfriend showered, would make John-Paul rethink her commitment to him. The experience had damaged her extensively and it had taken a long time for her to fall in love again. When she had, eight years later with John-Paul, she was desperate to keep him.

She hadn’t even told John-Paul names, despite his insistence that he could track down Zen if he knew his background, since she was worried he might uncover the truth and reject her. She’d told him Zen was untraceable, that police officers involved last time had used Zen’s previous identity, but had unearthed nothing about his whereabouts - he had seemingly ceased to exist for years. She had, though, agreed to professional help, and they had hired a hitman, who managed to track down Zen, but failed to eliminate him.

Jen was in a bad way. Andre had not seen her since his first visit, nor would he. He’d explained to them that he would not visit again. He was not a sitting target. He’d spoken to her on the phone and the emptiness in her tone was clear. John-Paul’s injuries kept her preoccupied though. Her inner withdrawal was inhibited while she nursed him. Andre shook his head. Maybe now John-Paul would think twice before defying him.

Zen would have gone berserk. Jen had spoilt his plan. Watching from the woods, he would have cursed her response. No pressure or tribulation, and therefore no success. She’d been desperate – out of her mind with worry – but it hadn’t come close to the maddening intensity he craved.

Now Zen would make her suffer. He’d line up something horrific. Andre had to be one step ahead. Only he could save her and prevent further pain. It was a mission he would not fail.