Читать книгу LOST SOULS - Neil White - Страница 21

The old man had been seated in a room by the time Sam got there. It was one of the older interview rooms, with woodchip and ancient desks, not for the best clients.

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.