Experiment With Destiny (5 page)

             
Crash.

             
Marcus froze.

             
He listened to the echoing clatter of plastic against stone and the distant chiming of broken glass as it tumbled to the floor. In his mind’s eye he pictured the naked male mannequin he had balanced against the wall. It must have toppled into a display cabinet.

             
His lungs began working again, his chest rising and falling as sickness gripped the pit of his stomach and his heart laboured in terror. Somewhere up ahead, beyond the reception and foyer, a door opened, there was a dry cough and footsteps paced toward him across the gleaming floor. Marcus felt the panic rising through his torso, constricting him. He released the basket and dropped the mannequin from under his arm, wincing at the noise. The steps quickened. Marcus turned and ran.

              The night watchman did not see the intruder disappear but he was sure he heard the sound of someone running away. His old eyes were still struggling to adjust to the reddish glow of the security light after the brightness of his office and the glare of his television when he spotted the squat box-like shape and the prone figure beside it. This was most odd.

             
“Hello,” he called, his voice trembling. The figure lay motionless. He pulled his torch from his belt and flicked it on. Approaching cautiously, the beam swept the corridor and highlighted the intricate weaving of the squat willow box. The sight of a picnic basket in the middle of the corridor unsettled him, though he could not put his finger on why. The beam picked out the brilliant white dress of the woman lying beside the basket. “Hello,” he called again. The woman did not respond, did not move. There was something not right about her, something strange about that dress, her hair, her painted skin…

              The blow that felled him came from the side, and too swiftly for him to have seen the figure detach itself from the nearby pillar and lunge. The torch glass shattered as it struck the floor. The thud of his body dropping to the stone followed an instant later.

Marcus stood over his quarry, shaking. The night watchman did not move. He leaned closer and was sure he could see a dark stain spreading across the floor from the back of the man’s head. Marcus dropped the truncheon, stolen from a nearby exhibit on 20th century policing, and shuddered with revulsion. He was about to walk back to the picnic basket and his partner in crime when he spotted the brace of keys on the watchman’s belt. Realising he had given little thought to how he would make his exit, he crouched down and attempted to relieve the watchman of them. After a minute or two of anxious fumbling he realised he could not detach them from the man’s belt and the smell of blood was starting to turn his stomach.

“Thou shalt not kill,” he remembered. Marcus ignored the voice in his head and rolled the body onto its side to release the belt. Concerned that he should not waste any more time, Marcus lifted the belt free and clipped it around his own waist and returned to his prized treasure.

Marcus was sweating profusely with the effort of dragging the picnic basket and the mannequin through the exit turn-styles to the heavy wooden doors. The keys slipped between his fingers as he paused, panting, and tried to locate the one that would open the main lock. If they had not been secured to the belt he would have dropped them countless times in haste and frustration. “Thou shalt not kill,” the voice repeated. Marcus tried to shut it out. Eventually he found the right key and slipped it into the lock. It twisted and clicked reassuringly. He gave the door an ambitious tug but it refused to budge. Then he spotted the twin bolts, top and bottom. Releasing them, he tugged again and instantly felt the force of the storm. Collecting the basket and figure, he fought the wind and stinging rain to struggle down the steps, his chest wheezing with the exertion. He had managed just a few paces when the straw boated was ripped viciously from his head. He watched it skip and bounce back inside the museum but quickly resigned himself to its loss and continued labouring toward the waiting van.

The traffic was light and there were few people around. Most had the sense to seek shelter and delay their homeward exodus until the worst of it passed. He crossed the road, getting drenched in muddy, oily water as a passing bread lorry ploughed through one of the larger potholes. Nobody paid him the slightest attention as he opened the rear doors of the maintenance van and wrestled both the basket and the mannequin into the back. Relieved and satisfied, he slammed the doors closed again and leaned his soaking head against the cold metal. A vision of the night watchman, bloodied and dead, flashed through his mind. “Thou shalt not kill,” intoned the stern voice.

“Leave me alone!” he insisted aloud. “God is dead!”

“Excuse me…” Marcus spun to meet the voice, an altogether different one to that in his head. “Off to a fancy dress party?” The police officer’s tone held a note of sarcasm. “Only I wasn’t aware the museum did fancy dress hire.” Her eyes studied him as she edged closer. Marcus glanced back to the museum, his mind spinning. He had come so far. His task was nearly done. To be stopped now…

             
“Leave me alone,” he repeated, as if to nobody in particular.

             
“Please open the door and step away from the van,” urged the policewoman, her black raincoat glistening in the rain. Marcus simply stared at her, the cold stinging his face, whipping his body, the flannel trousers and blazer sagging with the weight of the rain. He was tired. He wanted to be away from here, alone with his treasures. Marcus smiled.

             
“I’m going to fly through time,” he announced.

              A shrill ringing sound from across the street snatched her attention. Marcus followed her anxious gaze to the steps of the museum. It was an alarm. A figure appeared, staggering through the blackness of the open door. It swayed for a moment before toppling down the steps with a scream. Marcus knew at once it was the night watchman. He was still alive…Marcus had not killed him.

             
“Thank God!” he grinned.

             
“What?” The policewoman started, changing her poise and reaching for her stun gun, alarm obvious in her expression.

             
“Thou shalt not kill. I didn’t kill him,” explained Marcus. “I thought I had.”

             
“You’re under arrest!” she barked.

             
“No. No, I have to go now.” Marcus turned and began walking toward the driver’s door.

             
“Stop!” she ordered. Marcus ignored her, too weary to argue. He pictured the riverbank, the boat, the grass blowing in a gentle breeze and the warming sun. The policewoman lunged and tried to press the stun gun to the side of his neck…but a sudden gust knocked her off balance and the blow sizzled harmlessly in the rain beside his ear. Marcus saw the blue sparks and felt her full bodyweight crash hard into his back.

              Marcus lay on the sodden tarmac, winded, the policewoman on top of him. He gazed up into her pale skin and dark eyes, feeling the intimacy and warmth of her body pressing down on him. She was not looking at him. She was reaching for something on the road nearby. He was dimly aware of her voice, shouting warnings and threats, and the noise and splashes of the traffic passing just feet away. But he could also see the sunlight through the trees, hear the whisper of the breeze and the lapping of the water. He felt her hot breath caress his face. Her mouth was open, inviting. His desire was stirring.

             
“Misty.” He reached up and kissed her, pressing his tongue against her lips. His arms closed around her and he pulled her down until he felt her breasts resting on his chest. His loins stirred against the dampness of his flannels, against the weight of her smooth body. Suddenly she was fighting, squirming free from his embrace, the stun gun on the road forgotten. He clung tighter, sensing her panic, trying to stall her struggle. “Misty, no! You’ll fall in! You’ll tip us over!”

             
“Let go of me!” she screamed in the rain, and rolled. Marcus felt the boat tipping. The sunlight faded and the breeze began to whip him cruelly.

             
“No! The basket!” His head spun round. He felt her body lift from him, as though it had been stolen away. He tried to find the basket but all he could see was tarmac. “You’ve knocked it overboard! We need it!” He crawled on his hands and knees, searching, gasping for air between the rain. “Help me!” he implored.

              Marcus watched her stagger to her feet. He saw her, silhouetted against the brightly lit museum fascia. He saw the angry sky, the neon streetlamps, the pot-holed road. She was a police officer. It was all over. It was the end of his life. It didn’t matter…his life wasn’t worth living anyway. Marcus kneeled, smiling through the downpour. She was bending, reaching for something on the road. In the corner of his eye he saw a flash of white. It happened too fast to warn her.

              Marcus Smith watched the blood seeping from her wounds and, mixed with oil, dirt and rain, flow into the gutter and away through the drains. Her dark eyes were empty and her mouth gaped hollow, as if emptied of a last scream. There was something not quite right about the shape of her head, or about the way her body lay twisted and buckled on the road. Marcus turned to watch the lorry’s rear lights fade from view. Clearly the driver had no intention of stopping. He glanced across the road to see the night watchman slumped on the bottom step in front of the museum, cradling his head. In the distance he heard a siren wailing and thought he glimpsed the approach of flashing blue lights. Marcus did not wait to find out if he was right. He opened the door and pulled his aching body into the driver’s seat. Moments later he was driving away into the stormy night.

The storm cleared with the dawn. A blanket of mist clung to the grey jagged branches of the leafless trees. With the clearing of the rain, the temperature fell to leave a layer of cruel frost over the stony shore of the frozen reservoir. It was a panorama of ice…the haggard trees, dying weeds and tired earth. Marcus sat and shivered beneath the chequered rug, staring at the ice across the windscreen and glancing at the needle on the battery meter. It read ‘no charge’. He was numb from head to toe and felt barely alive. He could not tell how long he had sat there, waiting for the sunrise. It might have been minutes or it could have been forever. The perspective by which he judged such issues as the passing of time was gone. The trauma of the night seemed distant and dreamlike and, although he could not remember all of it, he was troubled by snatches of images and voices he could not deny.

Marcus was distracted by the glint of amber on the crystallised ice across the windscreen. At last, he thought. The waiting was over. With a determined effort that wracked his body, he pushed open the door and stumbled out, slipping on the frozen earth. He could see it now. The bright light caught the rim of the reservoir, piercing the mist. Marcus watched it burn brighter, rising slowly above the jagged tree-line until the circumference of its burning orb was more clearly defined against the weak blue of the sky. Although he felt no warmth from its glow, the bleakness of his dismal surroundings seemed to lift slightly. Marcus struggled to his feet and moved a few steps closer to the frozen water. The scene was now aglow with mist, frost and ice, the sunlight creating hues, tones and textures that drifted peacefully across the lake to prove that winter could indeed be beautiful.

He turned back to the van and, fighting to stay on his feet, collected the picnic basket and mannequin from the rear before setting out cautiously across the ice. It held his weight with ease, particularly at the shallower edges. He fell a handful of times, each time sending cracks shooting across the surface. Still the ice held. Reaching the centre, he tugged the rug free from his shoulders and placed it over the ice. Shivering with cold beneath the icy stiffness of the blazer, he placed the basket in the centre of the rug and began unpacking it, meticulously arranging the plastic food, cutlery, bottles and napkins in their rightful places. Finally he removed the wind-up record player and set it down near the edge of the rug, turning its handle until it would turn no more. Smiling, he surveyed the scene with pride and pleasure.

             
Marcus felt his eyes cloud with tears as he lifted Misty to her feet and embraced her tightly, gazing into her deep blue eyes. With one hand he brushed aside her auburn hair and pressed his cold, chapped lips against hers. With the other he pressed against the small of her back and felt her warmth flow though his stiff limbs.

             
“I will never leave you,” he promised. “We will never be parted. I don’t belong here my darling. I’m coming back with you.” Marcus choked back a sob. “Music? Of course…music.” He reached down and carefully lowered the needle onto the old 78 on the turntable. Releasing the catch, the black disc began to spin with a hiss and a crackle. Pulling her closer again, Marcus whispered in her ear. “I’m so sorry it didn’t work out better than this…but at least we’re here, together.” He shuffled his feet, one way and then the other, in time to the music. He felt the swirl of her dress. “Time to go home now.”

             
They danced. The picnic, untouched, on the frozen water.