Nobody True (25 page)

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said gruffly. “Get yourself changed and don’t forget to wear gloves tonight. I’ve told you enough times that all kinds of diseases can be picked up from cadavers. Now get on with it.”

Moker shuffled away, going through a door that I hadn’t noticed on one side of the long sparse room. I went with him out of curiosity. This was a locker room, tall cabinets set along the wall, where a youngish guy, who looked as if he enjoyed too many Big Macs, was just closing the door of one of them. Moker went to a locker, produced a key from his raincoat pocket, and opened it; but not before I’d had the chance to read the small name card on the door. “A. MOKER” it read in badly written capital letters. So, the name was confirmed, not that it would help me in any way. Why had I even bothered to follow him? I asked myself. What was I supposed to do? Not only could I not physically touch him, I could not even haunt him. He might seem aware of my presence at times, but there had been no indication that he’d actually seen me.

The mortician who had given Moker his instructions came in behind us holding a rumpled apron in front of him by the fingers of one hand as if it carried the plague.

“Whose is this?” he barked at both men in the locker room.

The tubby guy was shrugging on a jacket and his hand appeared from a sleeve to point at Moker.

“Alec’s,” he said, without a trace of betrayal.

The mortician gave Moker a withering look and pushed the offending garment towards him.

“I’ve told you before,” the mortician reprimanded as Moker took the grubby apron, “don’t leave soiled aprons lying in the cabinet room. This looks as if it should have been laundered weeks ago.”

He wheeled away without another word and Tubby Guy followed him from the room, leaving Moker alone.

I watched as he threw the apron in the bottom of the locker and took out green overalls, a long linen coat of the type worn by the mortician himself. He laid it over the back of a hard chair then unwound the choker from his neck. I flinched again at the sight of his poor ravaged face, but he quickly reached inside the locker again and took out a surgical mask, this one white, which he pulled over most of his face, hiding the hole beneath. Even so, with no shape of a nose and mouth, the cloth mask looked odd. It puffed out as he breathed, shrinking concavely as he took a breath.

Donning the overalls, he put his own coat, scarf and hat inside the locker and closed the door. Picking up a dry sponge and cloth he returned to the main room which, apart from the body on the metal table, was now empty. Moker approached the corpse, considered it for a minute or two, examining the plain stitching on its chest and groin where the mortician had removed organs for inspection. I noticed there were labelled jars on a shelf nearby, each one containing interior body parts. A brown clipboard filled with handwritten details hung from the side of the stainless-steel table. The corpse itself had a label with more details attached to the big toe of the right foot. I heard a muted cough and glanced over to a doorway leading to a small and, from what I could see, cramped office where the person who had greeted Moker sat bent over a desk. He still wore his green overalls and was busy with more paperwork, no doubt filling out forms appertaining to the deceased. At the sound, Moker busied himself swabbing down the body and I drifted away. The dead man was pallid beyond belief, with blue stains around his eyes and lips, similar stains blemishing his skin in other places. It was an awful sight, particularly with the stitched Y-shaped wound running down his chest and stomach, and I had no morbid interest in watching Moker at work. I drifted around, peering into glass cabinets containing all kinds of liquids, powders and creams, even body deodorants, wound fillers and body plugs. There was an embalming machine nearby with dials and tubes attached, its large glass container filled with pinkish fluid mounted on top. In the small office next door where the mortician continued his form filling, there was a desk crammed with upright files, a computer keyboard and screen, two lamps, a telephone, and various pieces of paperwork and folders. The mortician barely had room to write. Around the walls were more clipboards bearing various other forms, framed morticians’ licences, a calendar and some kind of printed schedule with days of the week and allotted work times inked in. I saw Moker’s name entered for all that week’s evening shifts.

The mortician finally laid down his pen with a grumble of relief and pushed back his chair, which was on castors. I stepped away as if the chair might knock into me (instinctive reactions were still hard to overcome), retreating into the mortuary itself, and the mortician followed me through. He didn’t bother to bid Moker goodnight as he made his way to the plastic doors, and Moker, who was busy swabbing down the corpse, didn’t look up from his work.

I still felt very uneasy in Moker’s presence, even though I could not be seen (although it chilled me whenever Moker seemed to sense that something was with him and he peered around the room, seeking out whatever it was that disturbed him), and I would have loved to have left that place. I couldn’t go though—the spirit’s words at the séance had had too much of an effect on me. Maybe I was on some path towards redemption, a path that would take me from this purgatory I was in. After all, I was a Catholic, even if a lapsed one, and I was supposed to believe in that kind of thing. Besides, incorporeality had to have some effect, didn’t it?

So I stuck with the situation, not having a clue as to the purpose of my vigil, but trusting that something important might come of it. The evening drew on and the later it got, the more the mortuary seemed isolated from the rest of the world. Footsteps, a cough from Moker, the dribble as he squeezed out the sponge—all sounded hollow, echoey, and louder than they should have been. I knew it was the acoustics created by the tiled walls and metal cabinets, but nevertheless, it was kind of ghostly. I suppose the hidden rows of dead bodies and the sight of the corpse that Moker worked on added to the creepiness, but I had to remind myself that I was the one doing the haunting. No one disturbed Moker in his work, nobody at all entered the mortuary that night; the telephone didn’t ring, there were no extraneous noises from beyond the four walls. The silence was relieved only by his grunts and occasional harsh breathing. It was both depressing and nerve-wracking.

At last he finished his labours and threw the sodden sponge and cloth into a plastic water bucket at the foot of the metal table. He gazed at his handiwork for a few moments, then traced with his thick fingers the stitched scar that ran from chest to groin. It was a sickening thing to do and I could only wonder at the man’s mentality and motive. Finally, he shuffled away, left shoulder higher than the right and went over to a tall freestanding cupboard, from which he took a large folded white sheet. This he spread over the body, covering it from head to ankles, allowing only the feet to show. After this, he wheeled over a gurney and effortlessly, it seemed to me, transferred the corpse onto it. He pushed it to the end of the row of closed cabinets, read the card on one, before pulling the cabinet all the way out. Naturally, it was empty and he came back to the body on the gurney and pushed it towards the exposed shelf of the cabinet. Again, effortlessly, it seemed, he lifted the corpse and laid it out on the shelf, tidily tucking the sheet around its outline so that he could close the cabinet once more. This he did, and when the shrouded body was out of sight, he tapped the cabinet front twice with the flat of his hand as if bidding the dead man goodnight.

This was cavalier at best, but what followed was far worse. My God, it was far, far worse; disgustingly so. First, he went to the plastic double door, pushing it open a fraction and peering out as if to see if the coast was clear. Then he came back to the closed cabinets and walked along them, tapping each door that was at chest level. He stopped, took another swift look at the plastic doors, then pulled open one cabinet. It slid out easily, only the low rumble of its runners breaking the silence, and I could see that the figure it held was smallish. Although the head was fully covered, I could tell by the dainty, colourless feet and the two slight chest bumps that a woman or girl lay beneath the shroud.

Moker pulled back the white sheet, slowly, as if relishing every stage of exposure, pausing as the breasts were uncovered. The surgical mask he wore puffed in and out with increased labour and I saw a dark saliva stain spread across it. The unveiling continued and I wanted to turn away from the obvious necrophilia. Instead, as if mesmerized again, I continued to stare in horror.

When, at last, the folds of sheet lay around the girl’s feet—I saw she could only be in her early twenties—Moker raised his thick, and now trembling hands and ran them over her chalky-white figure. Apart from her deathly whiteness and the blueness of her lips, she looked unharmed, as though whatever had ended her young life remained hidden within the vessel that was her body; her hair was golden blonde and it lay in matted ringlets around her head and neck.

I yelled a high-pitched protest when I saw what Moker was doing and tried to grab his arms, wanting to pull him away, wanting to prevent his desecrating this beautiful but lifeless girl. Nothing I could do would stop him though and, although I was aware of my inadequacy, I could not still my arms and I beat at him, tore at him, desperately tried to force him away. His big hand delved between her thighs, which were now spread in a revealing pose, and I screamed again and again.

Eventually, I gave up and went into the small office next door. I sank into the desk chair and lay my head in my hands, covering my ears.

I could still hear the brute noises coming from next door, the animal moans of Moker as he abused the body that had been left in his charge.

But shocked and repulsed though I was by the depravity, nothing could have prepared me for the horror that was to follow later that night.

28

It was a long wretched night and more than once I had to force myself to remain in the presence of this monster. I kept to the little office, desperately trying to close my mind to the activity next door. Other cabinets had been opened, but I refused to think of what might be happening to other cadavers. Perhaps having finished with the girl, Moker was merely carrying out his normal duties; I could only hope. Twice he came into view through the doorway, pushing a floor mop, a metal bucket by his feet, and I supposed that not only was it his job to clean the corpses, but also the mortuary itself. Once he came into the office and I had to back away into a tight corner to avoid his touch—I shuddered at the idea of sharing any of his sick thoughts—and I remained there as he shuffled through paperwork on the desk. I got the feeling that he was just snooping rather than working, because he added nothing to the various forms he browsed through, nor did he instigate new paperwork himself. He looked into the desk drawers and I had the impression he was still prying and not actually searching for something. And strangely, all the while he wore the surgical mask over the gaping hole in his face, as if visitors might drop in any moment and he did not want anyone to see the disfigurement. I had no idea how long he’d worked in this hospital mortuary, but I thought it pretty certain that other staff in the hospital knew of his deformity. In some strange way, perhaps he was hiding it from himself: I had noticed there were no mirrors in his grubby flat, but there were bound to be in other places he visited; in fact, there was a small one in this very room, stuck on a wall at about head level, obviously for morticians to groom themselves before they went about their business. Moker, deliberately it seemed to me, had refrained from glancing into the mirror all the while he was in the office.

It was a relief when he went outside again and carried on with whatever duties he was paid to do—cleaning and sweeping mostly, I’d have said, and not just tending bodies. I stayed where I was, sitting in the chair and closing my eyes, ready to jump up should he return. Occasionally I checked the time on the round clock fixed to the wall above the desk and only when the hands approached 10 p.m. and I heard Moker pouring water away into one of the mortuary’s stainless-steel sinks, and then the clatter of the bucket and mop as they were stored away, inside a cupboard, did I guess his shift was nearly up and he was getting ready to leave.

I went back into the long white-tiled morgue and trailed him to the locker room. He shed the green overalls and put the surgical mask into his raincoat pocket. Then he wound the long woollen scarf around his neck and face, and donned the coat and wide-brimmed hat. He was ready to leave and some inner instinct told me he was not immediately returning home.

I was right: he didn’t go back to his basement flat. Instead he drove to a twenty-four-hour underground car park in Bayswater.

We’d been sitting there quite some time, Moker slumped in the driver’s seat, me in the back, an impalpable passenger. I hated being so close to him—I was sure that if I had the sense of smell, his stench would have been unbearable—but there was no other option. I sensed he was up to no good (finely attuned instinct again?)—why else would he sit in the darkness of the car park’s lowest level, studying every person (and there weren’t that many at that time of night) who returned to collect their vehicle.

This basement area was almost as poorly lit as his flat (I was getting used to dark, dispiriting places by now: the séance parlour, Moker’s dingy home, Mother’s front room, and now this gloomy place, the car park itself), with no CCTV cameras, the parked cars few on this level. Footsteps, when they came, sounded lonely in this deep underground space. The old Hillman was parked between two smart cars, a Mondeo and a BMW, which only accentuated the battered wreck that it was. I thought Moker’s raspy breathing might carry beyond the confines of his vehicle, so quiet was this level he’d chosen, but it could be because of my own overwrought imagination. I heard a door shut and an engine start up, then the muffled sound of wheels travelling over concrete. The noise faded away. More footsteps, these belonging to more than one person.

Two people came into view, walking down the curving ramp in our direction, and Moker sank lower into his seat. It was a man and a woman, and they were arm in arm, gazing into each other’s eyes, seemingly oblivious to all else. They reached the BMW, failing to notice the dark hunched figure in the old car next to it, and the man fumbled in his pocket for his car key. Before he inserted it into the lock, the couple paused to engage in a passionate kiss, the man running his free hand down the length of the woman’s back. They clung together for a little while and I heard Moker’s breathing become heavier, more ragged.

The driver climbed into the BMW and the woman walked round to the passenger side; her lover stretched across and pushed the door open for her. As she passed my window I saw that she was attractive, probably mid-thirties, smart in long skirt and navy jacket. The man, I’d noticed, wore a slightly crumpled business suit and had carried a briefcase, which he’d dropped onto the BMW’s back seat. The pair looked like work colleagues who had just put in a stint of overtime. Once settled in the car, they practically hurled themselves at each other, mouths pressed tight, arms never still. Their kiss was passionate, their embrace ardent; they fumbled at each other and I began to feel embarrassed. Moker kept low in his seat, but constantly peeped over at the couple, obviously aroused, but wary of being spotted. Just when it seemed that the man and woman were about to lose all inhibition, an EXIT door about fifty yards or so away opened and three men stepped through. They were loud, laughing at each other’s remarks, one of them playfully punching another on the upper arm. The couple in the BMW froze for a moment, then sat up, the man fiddling with the key in the ignition as if getting ready to start up. When the three men lingered by two cars not far away, one of them looking across and spying the couple, the driver of the BMW did start the engine and switched on the headlights, muttering something inaudible as he did so. He drove off, probably to find some other secluded place for their after-work activities.

As the BMW sped by, the three men split up, two of them getting into a blue Peugeot estate, the remaining one walking to a parked Celica and climbing in. Moker straightened up as the Celica drove off, then bent forward to pick up something from under his seat, the small bundle he had stowed away earlier. As he held it in his lap and unwrapped the cloth, I heard the familiar clicking sounds and I leaned forward for a better view. Although the lighting in the underground car park was inadequate, I was able to see what he held up to the windscreen to scrutinize.

It was one of those wickedly sharpened coated-steel knitting needles.

I sank back in the seat, suddenly very afraid. Why was Moker loitering in this badly lit and isolated place? Why was he holding that modified wicked-looking domestic tool? It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Oh God! I wanted to get out. I didn’t want to be a witness to murder! Not when there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I—

The EXIT door opened again. Moker’s head snapped up. A figure, silhouetted by the light inside the stairwell, came through. Footsteps echoed around the concrete walls and pillars. The figure walked under the dull glow of a ceiling light and both Moker and I saw at the same time that it was a man. According to the newspaper reports, gender didn’t matter to the killer whose rampage had continued over barely six weeks. So if Moker was the serial killer—and by now I was sure he was—then a solitary man in this empty place would be an ideal victim. The ENTRANCE/EXIT part of this car park was three floors up, with thick concrete ceilings between.

Moker held the knitting needle upright in his hand like a knife while he waited for the man to draw nearer. I felt him tense, heard his breathing held in check; his other hand fingered the Hillman’s inside door handle. The man came closer, unaware he was being watched. He moved through an ocean of shadow until he passed beneath another overlight and I heard Moker give out a little moan of disappointment.

The man, who was squinting around through heavy-lensed glasses, was short, overweight and balding. Little did he realize that his plain looks were to save his life that night. I didn’t realize either until a little later. Moker slumped in his seat once more, leaning across the passenger seat so that he would not be seen from outside the car. The man, lucky to live a longer life, passed by about fifteen yards away and, with a “humph” of recognition, made his way towards a grey Saab several vehicles further along. I watched with relief as he started his car and drove out of the parking space, his headlights lighting up the interior of the Hillman for a couple of seconds. Moker kept out of sight until the Saab had passed and was heading up the curved ramp to the next level.

I’m not sure just how much longer we waited, but it must have been at least half an hour before the EXIT door opened again. This time a woman came out, her shape in silhouette, and I felt Moker’s rising excitement. She was alone and that made her very vulnerable. She was slim and had long flowing hair which made her a definite target, for I began to understand how the killer chose his target.

We could see more of the woman now and although she was not quite as glamorous as the first glance had suggested—her nose was a little large, her jaw a little weak—she carried herself well and the skirt and slim topcoat she wore accentuated the attractiveness of her figure. Her blouse plunged open a button too far and her ankles were trim in high-heel pumps. Now Moker’s excitement had him trembling.

His hand crept to the door handle once again as he watched the woman go to her car and we heard the “dweep” of her electronic door key. Moker pulled the handle slowly, deliberately, quietly, and eased the door open a fraction, checking that the woman, who was just opening her own door, had not heard the sound. She hadn’t; she opened her car door just as Moker pushed his wide.

“No!” I shouted as I lunged forward to grab him by the shoulders. It was useless, of course—my hands merely went through his body, raincoat and all. But he did hesitate. And I withdrew sharply, as though zapped by a thousand volts, for I had sensed him, caught sight of his nature, and the infringement was shocking. I felt as if my soul had lurched into something unbearably evil, an existence that was devoid of all compassion and wretched in its malice. It was only momentary—for both of us apparently, because Moker sat rigid, as if stunned—passing quickly and taking some of my energy with it. Moker turned and seemed to look directly at me as he had before now, but naturally seeing nothing. Even so, it was a relief when he turned away again and pushed the door, which had swung closed a little. He was about to step from the car when the EXIT door crashed open once more and two men virtually spilled out, laughing and giggling together at some joke that only the truly inebriated find funny.

Startled, Moker immediately pulled the car door shut again and watched the two drunks walk unsteadily along a row of parked vehicles. He gripped the Hillman’s steering wheel tightly with one hand and I heard him sounding off what must have been incoherent oaths. The woman, who had been about to climb into her car, glanced up and gave a disgusted shake of her head before getting in. I heard her car’s engine start and the head- and tail-lights came on. She reversed out and swept round, honking at the men, who had taken exaggerated steps to get out of her way, as she passed them by. One of them gave her the finger, which the other thought was hilarious. Her tail-lights disappeared up the ramp and the two drunks found the car they were blindly searching for. That neither one should be driving in their state didn’t seem to bother them. One climbed into the driver’s seat and the other went round to the passenger door and let himself in. The Jaguar reversed out perfectly and headed smoothly for the incline. It was quickly gone, the driver remembering to switch on his lights just as the Jag disappeared round the ramp’s curve.

Moker and I were left alone in the shadows once more.

We waited a long time.

There were still a few cars parked and some, I assumed, would remain there overnight, but no one came to collect any for quite a while and I thought my nerve—and my resolve—would break long before then. After all, I’d touched this man, I’d sensed him, I’d felt the harsh bleakness of his soul. I wondered if he had been born evil, or if his disfigurement—lifelong?—had made him that way. Bad as his disability might be, it was hard to justify his apparent hatred of normal human beings. And hate them, he did; I’d felt it when part of my body had merged with his. Could you be born evil? Or did you learn from environment and condition? I could hardly ask him the question.

How long was this psychopathic monster prepared to wait here for a suitable victim? Oh yes, I was doubly sure now that this was his intention—why else the sharpened knitting needles, why had he made a move towards the lone woman, if not waiting for suitable prey? But why not the first man who had come along? There had been no one else about, and previous victims had included both men and women. Also, the man had been overweight and soft-looking, hardly the type to put up a fierce struggle. It had seemed that Moker was about to go for him, but when he saw the man’s face he had relaxed back in his seat again. That was when it finally dawned on me. Was it that the first guy had been particularly unattractive? In fact, to be blunt he was downright ugly. Was the qualification for murder that the victim had to be handsome or beautiful or at least, presentable? So was that what Moker was looking for? The woman who had come along was certainly good-looking and Moker had prepared himself to go for her, only the two drunks arriving at an inopportune moment having saved her. According to the lurid reports in the tabloids, all victims so far had been either successful or fairly successful business types, smartly dressed and, from the photos of the deceased, attractive. That was why back in the hotel room Chief Superintendent Sadler had asked Oliver if I’d been handsome! Did Moker have a grudge against good-looking and smart people? Did he envy them? Did he want to eradicate them—and, of course, spoil their looks—because he could never be like them? I was soon to learn that killing these people was only part of it; Moker’s vengeful jealousy went far beyond that.