LOST SOULS

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Sam was hit by the smell as soon as he walked in. It was as if the old man had slept in his clothes for days, a musty mix of sweat and damp. From the back, Sam saw straggly grey hair over a dirty old grey overcoat, tide-marks along the collar. As he went around the desk, Sam recognised him straightaway. It was the old man who had been staring up at his window that morning.

Sam sat down in front of him.

The old man was in a chair without arms, and he looked vulnerable, scared. His knees were together, his hands over them, and he looked defensive. Under his coat he wore a shirt, but it looked creased, as if he had found his only clean one under a heap of others and made a special effort. There was a film of grey bristles over his cheeks, and his dark-rimmed glasses were held together by tape over the bridge. His eyes had once been bright blue, Sam could tell that much, but now they looked tired, ringed by dark circles.

Sam didn’t try to put him at ease. The old man had been watching him all day, and Sam wanted answers, although he wondered now how the old man had ever made him nervous.

‘Hello, my name is Sam Nixon. How can I help you?’ It came out brusque, unfriendly.

The old man looked surprised. He watched Sam for a moment, and then looked down. Sam realised that he’d just ruined the prepared speech.

‘My name is Eric Randle,’ he said quietly, his voice sounding hoarse, ‘and I have dreams.’

‘We all have dreams,’ Sam snapped back. He looked at his watch. At the moment this was all free of charge.

The old man ran his finger around his collar, and then said, ‘I dream of the future, and it comes true.’

Sam started to twirl his pen between his fingers, a habit he had when he wasn’t sure what to say.

‘I paint them,’ Eric continued. ‘My dreams, I mean.’ He shifted in his seat. Sam didn’t say anything. He just looked at the old man, let him talk.

‘I’ve always painted, since I was a child,’ Eric carried on, leaning forward in his seat, ‘but then I started getting these dreams, strong, vivid, violent dreams.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I knew they meant something, but I didn’t know what.’ He shrugged. ‘So I started painting them.’ He sat back and smiled, a nervous smile. ‘I paint my dreams, and then they come true.’

Sam tried not to smile with him. ‘What, you influence the future?’ He put his pen down. ‘I saw it in a film once. Richard Burton. Medusa something.’

‘No, no,’ Eric said, his eyes wide now. ‘You don’t understand.’ The old man took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. ‘These aren’t normal dreams. These wake me up, and I’m crying sometimes. I know I’ve seen something terrible, something that will kill people, but I can’t do anything about it.’

‘What kind of things?’

Eric began to clench his jaw, his eyes distant. ‘Disasters, murders. I’ve seen plane crashes, earthquakes, bombings. And I can’t do anything about it, because I don’t know when it’s going to happen, or where.’ He looked back at Sam, his eyes almost pleading. ‘Sometimes I’m too scared to go back to sleep. So I get up, no matter what time of night it is. I get up and paint my dreams. And then they come true.’ He wiped his eyes. They looked damp, his lip trembling. And I know all the time that I could have stopped it, if I’d just known more.’

Eric looked at Sam expectantly, as if he suddenly thought that Sam might have an answer. But Sam had his mind on something else.

‘Why have you been following me today?’ asked Sam.

Eric sat bolt upright and wiped his eyes, looking more focused. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a roll of paper. ‘I painted this a few months ago,’ he said.

He passed it over, barely rising from his seat; Sam had to lean over the desk to get it.

Sam unrolled it carefully. It wasn’t cheap paper. It felt thick, luxurious, not the glossy white of office paper. It seemed completely at odds with the man’s appearance.

It wasn’t a painting as he expected it. It was more of a collection of jottings, of images. There was no structure, no form, but the images immediately got his interest. Sam could tell the old man had talent. The human figures were drawn with swift lines, almost scribbled, and the colours overran, but the figures had astonishing movement, action.

It was the image in the middle that drew Sam’s attention. It came at him like a shot of adrenaline, recognisable straightaway. It was a woman, petite, young, tied to a chair. There was something hanging from her neck, like a rope, and her chest and face were painted bright red, with crosses over her eyes. Sam hadn’t seen the pictures from the scene of the murder, but he had heard Egan describe it over and over during the interview as he tried to rattle Luke.

Sam looked up at the old man, who smiled, just a nervous flicker of his lips.

Sam looked back at the picture.

There was more in the picture, and when Sam saw his own name scrawled across the top corner he felt his chest tighten. There were two people painted underneath his name, standing in front of a statue, of some old Victorian dignitary on a six-foot plinth. Sam recognised it. It was a statue near the court. The faces of the people in front of the statue were empty, but Sam could tell it was two men from the width of the shoulders and the suits.

Sam sat back and folded his arms. ‘What does this all mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ Eric looked at Sam, his eyes wide. ‘Sometimes I don’t know until afterwards.’

‘Until after what?’ Sam was getting frustrated now.

‘Until after it comes true.’

Sam put the picture down. ‘Mr Randle, this is all very interesting, but I’m a lawyer. I deal with legal problems.’ He gestured towards the picture. ‘I just don’t see how I can help you.’

‘I didn’t come here for advice,’ he said softly. ‘I came here to warn you.’

Sam felt a flutter of nerves. ‘Warn me of what?’

The old man shook his head slowly, sadly. ‘I don’t know. But you’ve been in my dreams all the time lately, and they’re getting stronger. Really strong.’ He rubbed his eyes and his voice came out in a croak. ‘I haven’t slept well in months. I keep hearing things, awful things, people crying, screaming.’ He rubbed his eyes again. ‘And I hear children, but they don’t say much. But I feel their pain, like they are lost and can’t get home.’

Sam wondered what to do. He could ring the police, but then what would he say? An old man had painted a picture and dreamt about him?

But then Sam remembered how he had been waking up every morning lately, bathed in sweat, the same dream making him wake up scared, bolt upright. A dark house. A boy crying. Doors, lots of doors. Falling.

Sam held up his hand.

‘Mr Randle, I don’t…’

‘You’ve got children, Mr Nixon,’ he interrupted. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

Sam felt a burst of anger. This was more than a passing client. He had researched him, looked into his life before he came to the office.

Sam stood up quickly and got ready to march Eric Randle to the door.

‘It’s got a scientific name,’ Eric said as he looked up. ‘Precognition. It’s not just me, you see. There are a lot of people like me. Some people write things down, some of us draw. Some people just forget their dreams, until something happens and they think it has happened before.’ He leaned forward and became animated. ‘Have you ever had a dream that something awful was going to happen, and then, not long after, it does?’

‘I can’t say I have.’ Sam spoke through clenched teeth, one hand already on the door handle.

‘Perhaps you just don’t remember.’

‘And perhaps I just haven’t. Look, Mr Randle, you’ve got to leave. And if you don’t, I’ll make you.’

The old man looked anxious, waiting for a response. Sam didn’t give him one.

Randle stood up, moving more quickly than Sam thought he would. ‘You’re in danger, Mr Nixon,’ he said.

Sam stayed by the door, his eyes blazing now.

‘Keep that,’ Eric said, pointing at the picture. ‘It might mean something soon.’ He started to leave, and then stopped. ‘We have meetings.’

‘Who does?’

‘The people who have these dreams. We meet up and tell each other what we’ve seen.’ He put a leaflet on the desk. It had been done on a home printer, the colours dull on cheap paper. ‘The girl in the painting was in our group.’

Sam looked at the piece of paper again, curled up on the desk. ‘What, the dead girl?’

Eric nodded. ‘Her name was Jess Goldie. She used to write down her dreams. She had seen it coming, we both had, we saw it in a dream, but we hadn’t known it was her.’

‘When did you paint this?’

‘There’s a date on the back.’

Sam walked over to the desk and turned the paper over. The picture was over three months old. Or so the date said. He looked at Randle, who shrugged his shoulders and then set his jaw as he clenched back a tear.

‘She was my friend,’ he said, ‘and I couldn’t stop it.’

‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘I just want you to be careful, Mr Nixon, and promise me that you’ll listen to me if I call you.’

Sam thought about it for a moment, and then he realised that it was a cheap promise, one he could always break if he wanted.

‘Okay,’ said Sam. ‘Promise.’

Eric looked happy with that. Sam watched him as he gathered himself and then shuffled out of the office. When he had gone, Sam felt his forehead. He was sweating. He looked at his hands. They were trembling.

He laughed nervously. The day had turned into a strange one.

Chapter Seventeen (#ulink_e5b08e20-b404-5a33-9182-24781acfcbbd)

Sam watched Alison as she drank her beer. She licked her lips whenever she took a sip, and ran her fingers through her hair as she laughed at one of Jon Hampson’s anecdotes. Jon was the ex-detective who ran the Crown Court department at Parsons & Co. Some cops just couldn’t let go, as if they missed the dirt when they retired.

Sam looked away. They were snatching a quick drink before heading home. For Sam, it was just a way of putting off the evening round of arguments with Helena, but he wasn’t in the mood for Jon.

Jon Hampson had been a scruffy cop, but his switch to defence work after his retirement the year before had changed him. He was small and round, his face pale, the cheeks marked by broken veins, but he had started to speak in a deep bumble, an affectation that helped him play the part. He peered over his glasses and his suits were now three-pieces, always with a bright handkerchief to match his silk tie.

‘Can we give the war stories a rest?’ pleaded Sam. ‘I’ve come here to get away from work, not revel in it.’

Jon stopped talking and exchanged raised eyebrows with Alison.

‘Is everything okay?’ Alison asked.

Sam looked at her and saw the concern in her eyes. She was young, pretty and funny, just about everything his wife used to be, and he felt bad for snapping.

But the day hadn’t been good. It had started with Eric Randle watching him from the street, ended with a warning, and had a killer in the middle. And Sam knew that he still hadn’t caught up with his paperwork. The day had had too many distractions, and it would get no better when he got home.

Sam held up his hand in apology. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just tired, that’s all.’ He sighed. ‘I just wonder sometimes about the point of it all.’

Jon didn’t answer at first, just watched as a waitress came over, bringing three more beers but no smile. He looked back at Sam. ‘What? This, now—café culture? Or life itself?’

‘No, no,’ said Sam, banging his bottle on the table. ‘Law. What I do. And what you do. Intruding. What is the point of it all? Of any of it?’ He rubbed his eyes and felt the skin sag under his fingers.

Jon laughed, too many cigarettes turning it into a wheeze. ‘You have had a bad day.’ He looked at Alison. ‘Has he been like this all day?’

Alison started to grin, but Sam shook his head. ‘There isn’t a point, and that is the whole point.’ He moved his beer around on the table, making small circles in the condensation from the bottle. ‘Seriously, why do we kid ourselves? I pretend I’m helping people.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s just bullshit. I help crooks stay free. Nothing more.’

‘Whoa, Sammy boy,’ said Jon, his hands held up in surrender. ‘It’s taken you this long to work it out?’ He winked at Alison. ‘Maybe it’s time for a holiday.’

‘Are you okay?’ repeated Alison, her voice concerned, quiet.

Her hair hung forward as she leaned over the table, her hand out. Sam wanted to take it, just hold it in his fingers, feel her warmth, a woman’s touch.

He looked away as he thought about Helena. She had once been warm like that. Then the drinking had started. Just social at first, a glass of wine with dinner, and then the bottle. He knew it was partly his fault, because he was never there to give her something else to think about. Their lives didn’t feel good. It was all routine and arguments. Sam hid at the office. Helena hid in the bottle.

‘Typical liberal lawyer,’ Jon said, as he warmed to his theme. ‘You came out of law school to change the world, but then you met the crooks and realised that they don’t want change.’

‘That’s a dismal view from an ex-cop,’ said Sam.

Jon waved him away. ‘You enjoy your conscience while you can, because it will wear you out. Me? I’m just out to make money.’

‘Didn’t you care when you were in the police?’ asked Alison, her eyes full of innocence.

Jon snorted. ‘I did thirty years and made no difference. I just helped move the money around. All those wages. Prosecutors, court staff, ushers, forensic scientists…An economy all of its own.’ He tipped his bottle towards Sam. ‘Even those ambulance-chasing bastards are doing the same thing. You know the ones. A firm dealt with a case last year, a bus crash. By the time the claims people had been round the estate, two hundred people had been on that bus. They must have been hanging off the fucking roof. If someone crashes into you, take a picture, because by the time it gets to a claim, the other car will have been full. But the money keeps swirling. Insurance assessors, claims farmers, lawyers. Don’t forget the lawyers. And when the damages cheque arrives, it’s spent. The shops stay busy, the taxes get paid, the country stays afloat.’

Even Sam was smiling now. Jon had that knack. ‘So I’m being patriotic?’

Jon shrugged. ‘You’re in it for the money, for the glory. For this,’ and he waved his hand around, ‘sitting in a pavement bar that can’t decide if it’s in Paris or Blackley, paying more for your beer because the girl who brings it to your table has got bouncy little tits and an arse you want to grab the next time she goes past.’

‘You must have had a conscience once?’ asked Alison.

Jon smiled at that. ‘I watched them all walk free. Rapists, child-killers, robbers. All set free by some clever defence work, and the lawyers were the ones going home in the Mercs. Maybe I just thought it was my turn.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Just take the cheque, Sam.’

Bobby held my hand as I waited outside the police station for Laura.

It felt strange—his fingers were tiny in my palm—but nice, secure.