Shudder Read online

  At least here everything followed a specific routine; there were clear objectives and clear criteria to measure them, clear-cut relations, and an obligation of mutual politeness.

  With an effort she straightened out of her slouch and mouthing a grateful “Hi” to Bob—grateful just for him being there—she sat on her desk and switched on her PC.

  While the computer warmed up, she quickly arranged her piles of useful things on the desk: her phone, her wallet, her notebook, two pens...then the monitor lit up and she typed in her password.

  As she was checking her mail, Bob came over to her desk, put a printout on her keyboard, as was his manner, and gently massaged her shoulders, as was his manner.

  “Please, Bob,” she said, shrugging his hands off. A second after her instinctive reaction, she remembered that this could hurt his feelings and turned to look at him.

  He appeared to be unperturbed, and just said, “Okay, little lady,” as he met her gaze. She felt him take in her crumpled and deflated appearance.

  He also noticed that she felt this, and said his part, “You ill, Natalie?”

  “No, no, just a little cold or something,” she said brightly, opening her eyes wide to show how awake and adequate she was.

  Having sorted this out, he waved at the papers on her desk, “When you’re done reading that, call me so that we can work on it.” Then he retreated to his own desk.

  “Okay, Bob,” she said with a half-smile to his retreating posterior and tried to concentrate on the text. She blew her nose again, with some success this time, rubbed her face, shook her head, and tried to concentrate again. The letters swam only a little and she was able to make out the general idea.

  Apparently a new party, called the National Patriots, wanted an analysis of their potential ability to enter the Parliament in the coming elections, which was in only two months.

  That’s cutting it a bit short, Natalie thought to herself, twiddling her blue pen. She read the mission statement of the party.

  As usual, at first glance it looked like semi-articulate rabid Saddam revivalists had written it.

  This happened half the time.

  If the mission statements of various parties, candidates, and organizations did not in their unedited forms look like crude variations of Mein Kampf, then they made one think of abstract left-wing poets inhabiting faculties of provincial universities.

  She took her pencil out of her mouth and directly started crossing out sentences and writing more acceptable substitutes above them.

  In order to survive in the field, her boss not only offered slightly lower prices than his bigger competitors, but also always made it a ‘two in one deal’, public relations advice thrown in with the market data, and Natalie had learned very quickly the basics of how sentences should be worded in order to not immediately alienate everyone.

  Unlike, apparently, most politicians and their think tank pals.

  She called Bob. He smiled and rolled over to her on his chair. “So, little lady. I see you’ve already crossed out the more horrible stuff, eh?”

  “Yes,” chirped Natalie. “I wonder what they are thinking of when they write their mission statements.”

  “Indeed.”

  Having participated in these quick mutual congratulations of what swell professionals they were, Bob got down to business, “Now, we have only two months. This means we have to start next week at the latest.”

  “Yup. First we need to see what chances they have.”

  “If you ask me, they don’t have a chance in hell.” Bob was a man; he had the right to say such things.

  “Ah, but we can’t tell customers that.” Natalie was a woman; her obligation was to tone things down.

  “Yes, but they don’t have anything. They have no recognition, no famous people, no one knows who they are or what they stand for.”

  “Quite right. So, first of all…” Natalie drew intersecting circles in her notebook to drive her thoughts along. “We must advice them to try bring over some musicians, artists, or something over to their camp in order to be associated with someone people have heard of.”

  “Yes.” Bob bobbed his head. “Even a has-been actor or journalist remembered only by people over fifty will make them more recognizable than they are now.”

  Natalie and Bob settled into their brainstorm routine. Bob would say disparaging things, forcing Natalie to, in turn, try to locate the available options. They were a good team.

  Natalie’s brain was already back on track and working in full throttle. “Also, they need to start staging events. Protest against something, or support something, and give out some leaflets about something. Visibility.”

  “True...” Bob’s eyes widened. “They can also choose a special day, you know, like the days of the saint of something patriotic, like Saint George, and use it to stage their event.”

  “Well, Saint George’s day has been and gone for this year, and it’s been claimed by almost everyone already, but you’re onto something.” Natalie smiled generously.

  Bob thought a bit more and then apparently gave up. “Enough with that for now, it’s obvious some things can be done. We’ll work them out as we go. First, we have to know where we stand sociologically. What’s our latest data on the three big parties?”

  Natalie rolled her eyes upwards as she counted, “From two months ago.”

  “It will have to do for now. Do you have the file on your computer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see which of the parties has a periphery of voters who can possibly be cajoled to join the ranks of our customer.”

  Natalie tapped Bob’s knee with her pen to show agreement. “After that, we can see which people in government are the least liked by the voters right now, and we can figure out how the National Patriots can attack them publicly.”

  “Little lady, you and I think like one person.”

  Natalie opened the file with the political support data. The buzz of working and the knowledge of being one of the best, or at least one of the very good in the field, helped marvelously to hold at bay the disconcerting half-formed anxieties that circled hungrily around her.

  Chapter Ten

  Dave looked at his Bardales file. Then he looked at Bardales. Bardales returned his gaze, mashing his leather cap with his light brown hands. His cup of coffee sat untouched on the floor beside his chair.

  He was a professional cabby, a man of the manual labor classes, and being on the other side of the desk on which Dave sat obviously unnerved him in some subtle manner.

  Hierarchies.

  “So, let me summarize—” Dave gave the man a quick smile and a stern look. “You went to an X-SEX shop on Garibaldi Boulevard, on the twenty-fifth of last month, and purchased a fifth grader toy-girl of the cyberpunk line.”

  “Yes, yes.” Bardales leaned forward with a slightly pained expression. “Why are we going on so much on the sex toy? I mean, other stuff...” He illustrated with a vague wave of his hand. “…valuables...were also stolen from my home, and...” The cabby’s voice trailed hesitantly away.

  Dave studied the man for a few seconds and decided to come clean. “Because you are not the only one to have a break-in of this kind. Two more people have had break-ins in the same time period, and have also had their sex dolls destroyed in a similar manner.”

  Bardales was alarmed. “What do you mean? What does this mean?”

  “This means, we are most likely dealing with a maniac. Please don’t tell anyone,” Dave quickly added. “If he doesn’t know we’re after him, we have a larger chance of capturing the criminal before anyone gets hurt.”

  Now Bardales was alarmed even more. “How do you mean, ‘get hurt’”?

  “Well, Mister Bardales, there is always the possibility that the maniac in question could graduate from to
ys to humans. So, we must apprehend him as quickly as possible.”

  Dave saw the cabby’s complexion go a shade paler. He couldn’t blame him. The man was, after all, now faced with the theoretical possibility that a maniac could be stalking him.

  Dave ploughed on, “The valuables which were stolen from your home were listed by the police, but what I need are details concerning the doll itself. The more details I have, the bigger the chances that the criminal in question will be apprehended soon.”

  “Of course, of course, please ask.” The hands resumed mashing the hat.

  “So, you bought a fifth grader, from X-SEX at Garibaldi, on the twenty-fifth. At what time?”

  “Late, very late, it was probably around two in the morning.”

  “Okay, another thing—did your wife know that you used this doll?”

  “No, no, of course I hid it from Maria. She would have killed me if she knew.”

  “You are certain she didn’t know?”

  “Yes, I kept the doll under my bed, we sleep separately you see, and it was hidden on all sides by stack of old books, thrillers I knew she’d never read.”

  “How did she react when she found out about the doll?”

  “She’s at her mother’s now, with the kids,” Dave repressed a smile at the sight of the heartfelt indignation, “didn’t believe me that I’ve never seen it before in my life. If I ever get my hands on that puta...” Again, the man’s voice trailed off.

  “Quite. All right, I think we’re done here, Mister Bardales. Thank you so much for your cooperation.” Dave stood up to prompt Bardales. Bardales promptly stood up too. “A pleasure to help, I only hope you catch him soon.”

  “I hope so too. Good day.”

  After closing the door after Bardales, Dave looked once more at the Bardales file and saved it in the Toy-basher folder. He saw a small icon of an envelope blinking at the corner of his screen. A message from the police.

  He clicked it. It was another sex crime update.

  The body of a twenty-two-year-old student, Trisha McCormac, was found in the woods near the city. She was covered in small bruises, as if beaten by the tips of a number of similar blunt instruments.

  Cause of death: asphyxiation; although there were no marks on her neck, and her airways were open. No water in her lungs. No residue of cotton or cloth, to indicate the use of a pillow or cushion as the murder weapon. Evidently, she was suffocated with something like a plastic bag. No DNA whatsoever. In fact, she smelled of chlorine. She was thoroughly cleaned after death.

  Like all the others.

  With a resigned expression, Dave opened the Season Girls file. For five years he had worked with the police as a detective specializing in sex crimes and for five years, four times a year, once for every season, there was a girl like that found in or around the city.

  A complete mystery.

  They had on their hands a serial killer, who worked only four times a year. This sort of behavior did not fit any type of killers he knew of. Now it was autumn, and they found another suffocated girl smelling of chlorine.

  There seemed to be no racial or social pattern uniting the victims in any way, except that they were always young women below thirty. It wasn’t his case, no one had assigned it to him, but he insisted on receiving all the basic information about it.

  Dave switched off his computer and stood up. It was time to go meet the second victim of the toy-basher, Phalak. As he walked through the secretary’s room, he saw Maldiva sitting near little Lucy, cajoling her to take bites out of an apple.

  The TV still absorbed Lucy but thankfully, it was now on a cartoon channel.

  Like countless generations before her, Lucy held her breath as Jerry the mouse dropped and went stiff after drinking milk poisoned by Thomas the cat. Then her eyes opened in wonder as Jerry jumped up, appearing stronger than ever.

  “I’m going out, Maldiva,” Dave said, “and you are free to leave as well. See you tomorrow morning.”

  “All right, goodbye, Mister Cohran. See you tomorrow.” Dave winced as the secretary playfully slapped Lucy’s bottom to get her attention. “Say ‘bye’ to Mister Cohran, Lucy.”

  “Bye.” Lucy mouthed through her apple and waved her hand. Dave waved back and made his exit.

  Still thinking about the annual girl corpse, Dave twisted ineffectually his ignition key, before remembering he had to say the command. “Drive, James,” he said and the BMW hummed to life.

  Not up to braving the radio, he directly switched on the music he prepared beforehand. This time he listened to an ancient album of Fergie. It was a song about her treasures, their pleasures, boys going loco... Dave sighed contentedly. They sure knew how to make pop music in the past, how to be subtle, not like the mindless stuff these days.

  Nevertheless, by the time he reached the mall, he had already fallen back on Light-Eye Dove’s rendition of the Beatles. He totally agreed, that the inserts of vintage 1990’s trance samples into Tomorrow Never Knows did add something.

  He parked his car on the minus fourth level and took the elevator to the first floor of the mall. As the doors of the lift opened, he entered the world of shining, warm, plastic safety.

  Fashionable families, fashionable couples, and fashionable groups of students moved with the easy grace of people being in a place where they truly belonged.

  A group of almost identical schoolgirls with heavy makeup, curly purple and black hair, and shiny chains acting as belts for their pants, giggled at David as he passed them. He looked about for the cafe.

  Intertwining smells of perfume and natural soaps tickled his nostrils. His eyes located the cafe—Brown X-Tasy—and there was a neon sign above the entrance, a blue coffee cup with three rising wisps of smoke.

  He passed a stand of lipsticks, navigated through a group of bleached women clustered around a fake nail stand, turned by the shelves displaying sweets and gums, and was there.

  He entered the cafe and looked around. All tables were taken but one. For hormonal reasons beyond his control, his attention immediately focused on a group of pale blond teenage girls sitting with very straight backs around a stern looking older woman.

  In another age , the way they were dressed, especially the older woman, would make David think morals have fallen so low, that a madam was publicly and shamelessly displaying her underage flock.

  Fortunately, they were obviously a gymnastics or dance team with their trainer. Foreigners from Russia, Sweden, or something like that. Maybe they were just bleached too.

  The madam caught his eye and deliberately wiped her lips with her fingers. Her flock of girls also turned to see who she was looking at. Quickly averting his gaze David made his way to the line at the counter.

  He surveyed the rest of the customers. There was another table populated by a half-dozen schoolgirls, near it—a table of a half-dozen schoolboys. The girls were playfully trying to get the attention of the boys, who gruffly pretended to concentrate on man talk.

  Two elderly couple occupied two tables, and another table housed a youngish couple of about thirty.

  At the other four occupied tables sat three single men and one single woman. Of the men, one was white, one was an east Asian and one was brown.

  It was Dave’s turn to order. He asked for a double coffee with milk and went to the other side of the bar to wait for it. There he discreetly took out his notebook and looked at the name of the person he was meeting. Phalak Chippada.

  “Phalak Chippada,” he repeated soundlessly to himself. “Chippada, Chippada.” Probably a Hindu. Maybe an Arab. Maybe an Arab-Italian. He grinned at the thought.

  An effeminate youth with heavily gelled hair passed him his coffee, spilling only a little of it. David nodded, took three of the long packets of sugar, and slowly approached the table of the brown-skinned man. The man watched h
im approach.

  “Hi, are you Mister Chipada?” Dave asked in a low voice.

  “Yes indeed,” said the man and smiled nervously, crinkling his eyes in a friendly manner, “and you are...er...Detective Cohran?”

  “That’s right,” confirmed Dave. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girls on the madam’s table titter into his direction.

  To them everything was quite clear: Dave was on a homosexual blind date.

  With as much dignity as he could muster, he took out his notebook, put it on the table, frowned in order to concentrate, put a pen on top of the notebook, and nodded at Mister Chippada. “Shall we begin?”

  “By all mean, by all means,” smiled Chippada, and unbuttoned the two top buttons of his shirt.

  More giggles from the girls reached Dave’s ears.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dave got out of his car and headed home. It was almost nine in the evening and already quite dark.

  It always took him a few months to get used to the sun setting earlier when the summer was over. By the middle of winter, he would really integrate the idea that it gets dark at five, but by then the days would start growing again, and by the time he got used to that, they would start shrinking again.

  There was a group of young nomies hanging out by his block of flats, and Dave passed them with the total nonchalance every male must learn to fake in such situations.

  A defiant spit was spat behind him, but he knew it wasn’t aimed at him, it was just noisy juvenile display of bodily functions designed to show the world how little its opinions and mores mattered.

  He unlocked his apartment door, kicked it shut with urgent impatience, and ran for the toilet. Five minutes after he had gotten into his car, the urge to urinate had come, and it was a mighty struggle to contain it until he got home, but he had managed it.

  Very early in life Dave had noticed that one was able to control one’s strong toilet urges, while on the way to the toilet. While the toilet was still a theoretical holy grail of salvation, that is. Once the toilet was actually in sight, control fell apart, and it was a question of speed and dexterity in disentangling oneself from one’s pants, to be able to avert disaster.