Awakening
A light draught woke the Detective. He raised his head groggily to see the fluorescent, broken linear shapes on the face of his alarm clock reading “04:38”. Raising an arm to his still lidded eyes, he rubbed the sleep from them, and they slowly opened further to give him the full perspective of his surroundings. He was in his room; the window was open.
Less than a minute later his phone rang - a call from the police station. It was no ordinary call, at least not in the ordinary sense of receiving a phone call. What had occurred in his unconscious head for him to have woken so abruptly with a transient moment in which he could collect himself not long before this phone call?
‘Hello?’ the Detective answered.
‘Detective?’ a monotonous voice addressed him.
‘Speaking. What’s the problem?’
‘Sir, we apologise for calling you at this untimely hour, but there has been an incident in the City which we think will require your attention.’
‘Any more details?’ He posed the question drily. Of course there were more details.
‘Some residents have phoned in with concerns regarding a neighbour in their block of flats. The calls have come from an apartment building in Kilburn, sir, near the High Road.’
‘OK, thank you.’ The Detective paused for thought, and then continued, ‘I’ll be roughly twenty minutes.’
He didn’t bother with intricacies or miscellanies. Hastily throwing on a black shirt, buttoning up, pulling up a pair of jeans, stepping into his boots and stretching his arms into a charcoal grey trench coat, he lifted one arm to the door handle - the other to his coat pocket, checking for keys, anything he’d missed - then he swung it open, and swiftly stepped outside.
He was getting the tube today as his car was being M.O.T.’d down the road and no one would be up at the ungodly hour of 05:25 (as the first London Underground trains began to mobilise beneath the metropolis). Canary Wharf’s huge arched entrance loomed over him as he entered the train station to catch a Jubilee train. A train station has a different air to it at half-past five in the morning; its marred and insignificant semi-cylindrical corridors became eerie and desolate as he curved in and out of them, as if through a labyrinth. And the platform itself, of which only one or two lone souls inhabited at the present moment, was as peculiar and vast as he’d ever remembered it.
It didn’t take long for a train to approach - another event which he perceived as strange - and he boarded it with haste.
On the train a copy of the Metro bore the piercing headline “Tories plan to cut back Metropolitan Police”. Why not? It was him they needed. He was, after all, an “independent” detective. No Dupin. No Sherlock. Merely the Detective. But he prided himself on this.
His eyes grew weary as he turned sheet after sheet of tabloid drivel, and for a moment all of life seemed a blur. He felt as though he were still dreaming, despite the fact that he had no recollection of what he’d been dreaming of, only a few hours ago. Being an investigator however, the Detective fancied himself an investigator of the mind, and if this were to be the case he could surely tap into the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. Of course. He just hadn’t tried it yet.
As thought after thought raced about somewhere in his brain, the pre-recorded announcement concluded: he was at Kilburn Underground Station.
Rain welcomed him as he walked out onto the streets. The streets of London - still entertaining the dark of early winter mornings - now hosted reflective pools of yellow light which poured from lampposts. They rippled violently as the rain drops showered down in higher numbers, and the Detective quickened his pace. The alleged crime scene - a block of flats nearby Kilburn High Road - was within his reach now.
Turning by the time he’d reached the corner, he was suddenly met with the blinding flash of red and blue - it was all a blur. As he approached, the solidity of police vehicles - two cars and a van - became more palpable, and a tall figure, who he discerned to be one of the police officers investigating, came walking towards him.
‘Sir, this is a restricted area undergoing our investigation. We cannot let you pass,’ the officer asserted with an air of distrust. Perhaps he already knew that the one approaching the scene was our Detective, a man disliked by many in the force for his unorthodoxy when it came to investigations like this.
‘I was invited to investigate the scene myself, officer. I am a detective, and have been sent directly from the local constabulary. Here is my identification.’ The Detective showed evidence, but he didn’t have to. It was a fact already known.
‘Right,’ the officer acquiesced, ‘come on through then.’
Stepping in between the clustered police vehicles, the Detective came closer and closer to the block of flats in question. A tall, dirty building; yet one which had a subtle otherness to it, hidden beneath the surface. He didn’t know what is was, but suddenly he felt daunted by it.
Inside
Once inside the building, he searched about his immediate proximity. Nothing conspicuously strange about the ground. There had clearly been a great number of people for whom the situation was just too much; they had evacuated themselves with haste.
Onwards he went. Up the first flight of stairs a door on the first floor was left ajar; peering through it, he could work out worried voices from within. ‘Hello?’ he called out, and the voices stopped - their owners stepped out onto the hallway in front of him.
‘Who are you?’ one of three asked.
‘I am the Detective. I have come to investigate after speculations from residents - such as yourselves I presume - with worries concerning a tenant here.’
‘They’ve sent someone,’ the second of the three announced with relief. ‘We’ve been waiting ages.’
‘I made the call,’ the third of the three interjected. ‘I could hear it first.’
‘Hear what?’ the Detective asked.
‘Screaming,’ came the anxious voice of another, who had been hidden. She arose from the shadows to reveal a tearful face, pale and distressed. ‘Shrieks from the top floor. I heard them first. I felt them. They were horrible screeches, cries for help, I know it. Someone was being hurt up there.’
‘How could you ascertain that it was the very top floor?’ the Detective queried her.
‘Nobody lives there. That’s what makes it so strange in the first place. No one lives there. It’s like, some woman owns it but she never ever comes here. I don’t understand what the hell could have brought her back. But that’s how I knew. I hear shouts and laughter and all sorts from every other floor. But nothing from there.’
‘You think she was screaming for help?’
‘Well I imagine that’s what she wanted! No one screams like that unless they’re suffering.’
‘Very well. Thank you all. Can I take your names down? Witness purposes and whatnot.’ Names were for his purposes alone. They helped him string things together. Though he might offer witnesses to the police occasionally, when they so desperately tried to piece together the mysteries themselves, this was a rarity. He would get there before them.
‘Anthony,’ said one.
‘Claire,’ said another.
‘Yuri,’ said one more.
‘Danielle,’ said the final one. The least confident of the four.
He progressed further up the apartment building. A man was stood outside his room; he approached the Detective as soon as he saw him ascending the flight of stairs.
‘Excuse me.’
‘Hello,’ the Detective responded. ‘I’m here to investigate unusual happenings in this building. Several distressed neighbours had called the local constabulary. Do you know anything about what happened here?’
‘I do indeed,’ the sweaty man replied, ‘this place, my friend. It’s not right you see. I’ve known for a long time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This place. They built it on unwanted land. That’s why I’m here really. Dirt cheap prices. Settle down, I thought. I can’t settle. I can’t be settled.’ His eyes widened and his pupils darted about; his body shuddered, his hands shook slightly and his top lip quivered.
‘Unwanted land? Are you going to tell me anything about what happened upstairs, sir?’
‘Of course. I can’t unless I explain myself first. This building is built on a burial ground, a mass grave. World War II. It’s a bomb site. ’43. This place is plagued with bodies. Plagued with history – blood, so much blood.’
Increasingly agitated, the Detective began to take slow steps past the man. But the man raised an arm and grabbed him by his jacket.
‘A woman.’ His eyes became bloodshot, pupils dilated; his pulse had risen; his veins were more prominent. ‘It’s so horrible, friend. It’s so horrible. Chopped. Quartered. Dismembered. Limbs. Blood – so much blood.’
‘Where?’ he began to take the man seriously. He saw something – concern? Paranoia? Paranormal? Whatever it was, he took it seriously.
Panting, though he had been stood on the spot the entire time they had been talking, the man didn’t have enough breath for speech, and so he pointed upwards. ‘U-’.
‘Above.’
A nod. ‘Y- yes.’
He raced up the steps, past floor 5, 6, 7 – he had no time for other worried residents, other “concerned” neighbours – and found that he, too, was now panting. 8, 9… that was it. He was on the highest floor (although technically the penultimate floor, as the one above led to the roof). He went to open the door. Sweat now dripped down his nose. What that man had said to him had stuck with him. As his hand tightly gripped the doorknob, he saw: crimson red, a blade, deep into the bone, a pulsating victim – horrified, shocked, dying – and blood. So much blood.
The door wasn’t locked. He opened it slowly and peeked inside. It was engulfed in darkness.
Suddenly something unbelievably uncanny happened. It just happened. Parts of the building had begun eroding away. He heard a blast; the sound took longer to reach him before he could see it with his own eyes. Surreal. It couldn’t be. An entire staircase crumbled away. He was stuck on the top floor of the flats. Panicky yells came from below. People - families, individuals - could be heard scurrying out through the entrance.
As horrendous as the situation he now found himself in was, he was still determined to find something, anything; a remnant, something left behind which point the way. He felt a vibration by his hip, and reached into his pocket to pick up the phone.
‘Detective!’ an anxious voice yelled.
‘Who is it? What the hell is happening?’
‘PC Danny Hirsch, sir. I need you to make your way out of that building now.’ Not yet, he thought. He was going to find something. ‘Get to the roof immediately!’
‘I’ll make a move for the roof with haste Mr Hirsch.’ He ended the call.
There was no light apart from that which was shining from a helicopter, presumably coming for him. He thought of making a dash through the room but reason stopped him abruptly: stealth was appropriate. He was unsure of whether there was still a presence in the room. He certainly felt that something was there.
Sneaking hastily past what he perceived to be the living room, he could see that an altercation had occurred - either that or this was a serious case of neglect. But as he progressed, he soon saw it - a blood splatter across the wall. It ran from a dusty wall to a closed door. He could make out some of the congealed splatters to be fingerprints, which raised an alarm in his head - this was a nasty altercation, and it had not ended well.
Opening the door - which creaked with such an acute screech, it was harrowing - he couldn’t see a thing as he entered. His eyes squinted to see if they could articulate anything for him. But, no need: the light from helicopter again appeared and seeped through the room he was in. He then found something horrifying. A briefcase oozing with blood, on a messy bed with red stains everywhere. He stepped back for a moment, and tried to process what he had just seen; he knew it was just going to get worse, so he decided to near the bed. Lifting the briefcase, which was abnormally heavy, he dragged it onto the floor and opened it (which was simple enough) to see the contents.
Oh, horror indeed. A dismembered body. Female. Intricately carved in such a way that he could discern each part which was present vividly. The torso, which had several stab wounds, was separated from both pairs of limbs, and the head. All of the limbs were present but the head was not; hands and feet, too, had been ripped from it (revealing some lingering bone and ligaments still attached to the arms and legs).
He couldn’t stay there any longer. But he couldn’t leave the briefcase in a crumbling building. He closed it, holding his nose so as to prevent himself smelling the awful stench of the quartered corpse. He then started towards the entrance of the flat he was in and climbed another flight of stairs which led to an exit onto the roof. Darting straight outside, the helicopter which had come to his rescue was perched, and its propellers still cycled rapidly, ready to take off as soon as the Detective raced onto it. Being pulled in by PC Danny Hirsch, he then watched from the ascending helicopter as the building continued to decay.
What Happened
‘So, what happened exactly? Once you were inside.’
He was being questioned in a cold police station, in a room with four white walls, a desk, and a harsh bright light above. It was like an interrogation, but this was just a normal office. There was a pinboard with various images, post-it notes, and names and dates written on it. On the desk was a lukewarm cup of coffee. The absence of the coffee’s heat and steam did not stop its rich aroma from hitting the Detective’s nostrils acutely. It was both dreamy and repugnant, as he could kill a cup of coffee right about now but the strong stench was something he couldn’t tolerate.
The officer repeated his question, in an attempt to gain the Detective’s attention. ‘Detective. What happened?’
He looked up at the officer questioning him with an almost vacant stare. Then he became conscious of his situation and proceeded to answer.
‘I entered the flats and spoke with several residents, all of whom were deeply concerned - some to the point of anxiety. One told me about the block of flats being unfortunately placed on what he called a “burial ground”. It was built on a bombsite from World War II. After trying to tell me about a haunting, I nearly dismissed the man. Until...’ he stopped mid-sentence.
Noticing his pause, the officer asked him, ‘Until what?’
The Detective returned to his train of thought. ‘Until he told me something horrible. It was like a prediction. A prophecy. Or just - just a knowledge that something abhorrent had occurred in that building. I took him seriously. He told me about a murder.’
‘He witnessed a murder?’
‘Not exactly. He hadn’t been up in that room at all, he lived only a few floors up.’
‘What room?’
‘On the ninth floor. The flat belonging to someone on the ninth floor. I went up there and I saw something terrible. I felt it even as I touched the handle. It was as if I’d seen something in mere milliseconds after my hand came into contact with the door. I know it sounds silly.’ The officer said nothing, but his eyes betrayed his scepticism clearly. ‘Anyway. So I stepped into this flat - still not a clue about the owner but I feel, horribly, that she may no longer be with us.’
‘What makes you say that?’
He had to just cut to the chase. There was no room for the added detail at the present moment. The officer was pressing for the crucial information. It was now becoming obvious that a murder had taken place.
‘Take a look at this. I warn you though,’ he raised the briefcase up onto the table, ‘you may want to prepare yourself.
The blood had coagulated now. It was hardened and crimson, and looked crusted. The officer looked at him nervously. The Detective couldn’t imagine what thoughts must be racing through the man’s head at this point. He relieved the tension and opened it to reveal the corpse, which was much smellier and putrid than before now (it was several hours after he had been salvaged from the block of flats). The man’s face grew pale and his eyes widened. Of course, you would expect someone who had worked and dealt in such matters for so long to be “used to” these kind of horror shows. But this policeman certainly wasn’t.
‘I-’
‘It’s OK. I was as shocked as you,’ the Detective tried to console him.
‘Of all methods of storing a body. Ugh.’
‘That’s not all of it. Either the perpetrator of… this…,' he signalled at the body parts in the briefcase, 'has done away with the remaining body parts, or maybe kept them for himself; or they are now a part of the debris from that fallen building. I still can’t fathom how it fell apart like that.’
The officer, calming down slightly and finding the current situation more discernable, responded. ‘Erm, well nothing’s been established yet as regards that mess. It’s quasi-miraculous that we managed to rescue you from it - an enigma.’
‘I suppose something will be revealed in due course.’
‘Maybe. Listen,’ the officer lowered his eyesight so that it was placed solely on the dismembered corpse before him, ‘I think you ought to head home now. You’ve dealt with a lot today. I mean that’s an understatement, even I’m fucking incredulous. I can’t even begin to imagine how affected you’ve been. But regardless of that, it’s best that you go and get some rest. We’ll be in contact again soon.’ The officer adjourned the talk and bid the Detective farewell. So he did as the officer had advised, and headed home.
