'First time?'
He shakes his head, then shrugs. 'Kind of. First didn't really count. That was my real proper first one.'
I still see, pin-sharp and immediate, the memory of Issy fading away in my arms and pulling me to her, to her torn throat, as though she knew something that would take me much longer to understand. The wrenching guilt of what I had done, even so briefly, stayed with me.
'The ones that did it,' says Carla, 'Did me too.'
We both turn to her a little thrown by that. Roth shifts in his seat, adjusts his arm.
'About three years. I'd been out with friends, a lot of drink, some drugs. We were in a club and met these guys throwing cash around and ended up at their hotel for a party. I ended up wandering off down the corridor out of my face and when I got in the lift…'
'Both of them?' I ask.
She shakes her head. 'Just Frost. Very friendly, very charming. I started following him to his room I was so wrecked. Thought it would be some little adventure. Another tale to tell. Two yards from his door I got this awful feeling that I should run. Too late by then though, too wrecked to get anywhere fast. Woke up alone in their room next day in a right state and when I got up and opened the curtains…'
'Fucking turbo tan right?' says Roth.
She nods and there's a whole lot more of that story that she won't be telling us.
'Anyway, I know what you're up against.'
'But why? What's the point? Do this to us and then leave us?' Roth says.
‘Three years?' I say and Carla nods.
'That means something?' Roth looks like the temper is rising again.
'I've met them a few times. They call themselves Frost and Stanford, and they do appear to do this for a reason. But they haven't left us.'
'They've left me. Haven't heard fuck all since it happened. Not til I saw your mug on TV getting fished out the Thames. Not seen any sign of anyone and I've tried getting someone's attention hard enough.'
'Indeed. But they've stalked me all around the countryside. They gave me a whole spiel about this idea they had about making us both - me the good guy, you the bad guy - and then see what happens after we change. Like a fucking experiment.'
'They needed to do this to find out you were a pussy?'
'Fuck you,' I say.
'Yeah, fuck you Roth. You're an asshole, we get it. How's your arm?' Carla asks pointedly. 'Maybe shut up and let him explain to you all the things you're too stupid to have figured out.'
I pick it up again. 'So they kept coming at me and it was like I was supposed to pass a test, like an initiation. But the way they explained it, you don't just kill. You kill nasty. Cruel, you know? The more scared they get, the more adrenaline is in the blood, and that's the thing you're after.'
A penny has dropped with Roth and his eyes glaze. I don't want to know how well acquainted with that pattern he his, but I can take a guess.
'We fought and I thought I'd finished them off.' Roth raises an eyebrow when I say this, gives me a well-done nod. 'But they were just playing with me. Came back at me that night you were doing your swan dive off the Eye. Then again when I ended up in the river as well.'
'How do they keep finding you? How bad at running away are you?' he asks.
'There's more to them than you know,' Carla says.
'Yeah, I found a load of stuff on the internet that I thought looked like their work. People disappearing all over…' I trail off as an image comes to me of a photograph I had seen accompanying a news story. The picture of the missing woman and the two of them lurking in the background. The woman in the picture was Carla.
I pressed on. 'Sometimes it was all "he had everything going for him, we don't understand" and other times "he had started acting strangely recently" sort of thing. People just vanishing. Seemed like maybe some of that was up to those two. The pattern of it, the senselessness.'
Carla nods. 'Not all of it. Some people do just run away of course, and Frost and Stanford are not the only two killers in the world.'
'Sure, but some of that is them right? Doing the same thing they're doing to us?' I ask and she nods again.
'And what is that?' Roth asks.
'Fattening us for the kill.'
Roth doesn't get it for a minute. Maybe he has to figure out that I'm not being literal, or maybe he simply doesn't see what I mean.
'That last time they got to me, on the boat, they told me that's what they were doing. They said feeding on their own is much better than a normal person. It's more concentrated or something, more pure.'
'Jesus Christ,' Roth exclaims.
'Jesus Christ indeed, boys. These two reap what they sow and mostly, they do it well. Leave very few traces. Every so often, they get lazy, or underestimate someone and just occasionally, when they step up the hunt, the prey still escapes. No bother, move on, next one,' Carla says and it is clear she has been through all the things I have and more. The drunken, coke-head party girl turned out to be more tenacious than they figured.
'What was it George W Bush said? "They misunderestimated me." Well I reckon they misunderstimated all of us and I fancy big slice of payback,' Carla says and she has beaten me to the punch.
Roth looks at us both. He is still processing all the things we've told him about how this happened and to what purpose. Certainly he's been seeking some explanation, someone to tell him why he has become what he has become. But I realise with a sinking feeling, that perhaps I have overestimated Roth.
Maybe he doesn't actually have a problem with all this now that he knows. Maybe the explanation was all he wanted, the answers enough. Maybe he doesn't want revenge.
Roth pushes his legs out in front of him and slides down into the seat. He rolls his head down over the seat back and stares up at the dark ceiling.
Carla looks at me and it is plain that she too is wondering if we've assumed too much about Roth in so short a time.
'Frost did me. Did me first I mean. I remember it. I was about to hit you again, make sure you were down and then one of them appears and is suddenly just in front of me. Dropped down out of nowhere and shoved me back, shaking his head. Frost was standing there and he grabs me and says in my ear "I think you'll like this" and sticks something in my neck. I tried to fight him but, well, you know.'
I do. I nod.
'I remember thinking, why would I like being stuck in the neck? Not what he meant though was it? He meant this,' he says and waves a hand to gesture at the three of us, this empty old cinema, this whole situation. 'Frost's the real shitbag right? Slimy and sly. Why do I know that?'
'Who cares?' I say. 'The point is, these two need to be stopped Roth. Doing this to us, to anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. Catching then releasing just to hunt people down like terrified, defenceless animals, tormenting them. Making them into murderers just for fun? Just killing and killing and fucking killing.'
'They're bad ass though,' he says still staring at the ceiling.
'Carla's made it three years,' I say, pointing at her like Exhibit A. 'I've given them the slip three, four times. Arm aside, you look like a piece of work too.'
Roth says nothing and keeps staring up at the high ceiling and the patterns in the plasterwork that can be seen amid the gloom.
'If not now, then when? If not us, then who?' says Carla walking to stand in front of Roth with her hands on her hips. She might not have expected to have made his acquaintance so soon after getting me out of the hospital, but she recognises the opportunity it represents.
'You came to find me for a reason Roth. This is it,' I begin. 'Now let's-'
'Shut up,' he says. 'I'm in.'
*
We are pitching our own unknown qualities up against a foe that may have unlimited abilities and we've all known each other less than two hours. I'm still not even entirely convinced that Roth isn't in league with Frost and Stanford and this isn't just one big elaborate part of the overall plan to repeatedly capture and release me and prolong the
thrill of the hunt. What we need is a plan.
'How are we going to do this then?' Roth beats me to it but he's looking at Carla when he asks the question, like he knows it won't be me that answers.
'Not too sure how we'd find them, but I don't think that's a problem. They seem to have me on some sort of biological tracker,' I offer and then remember a point I was about to make earlier. 'You said that you've been this way three years Carla?'
She nods at me and smiles and I sense she know what is coming.
'So why have they not tracked you down? How have you stayed clear of them?'
'I'm not entirely certain, but I think I know,' she says. 'After I woke up alone in that room I couldn't face opening the curtains again or go outside and I figured that I had maybe had my drink spiked by something really nasty to make me so scared and paranoid. I slept all day and in the evening, I got up and showered and felt like I was pulling myself together.
'Then the door went and I figured it was housekeeping to chase me out the room. Must have been way past checkout. Anyway, it wasn't. It was Frost. He came in and sat me on the bed and told me everything. I remember, the whole time he had one hand on my shoulder and the other over my hands. Like a bereavement counsellor or something you know? Like he had nothing to do with it,' she says and there's fire in her eyes as she remembers, pure contempt. 'He told me what I was and what I would have to do now. He didn't mention the part about coming after me. Took me a couple of close shaves to figure that out.'
'What fun would that be?' says Roth.
'I killed a guy one night not long after. That fucking pain in my stomach. It was driving me mad but I couldn't eat. Just kept getting this smell in my nostrils and this… this drive.'
Roth nods absently. We both know what she means.
'And he didn't even do anything, not really. A bit over friendly, a bit drunk. But it was just some guy on his way home one evening, he meant no harm. Couldn't help myself. Couldn't do anything to stop it. Even when I was doing it I was thinking how fucked up it was but how-' she struggles to find the word, '-fantastic.'
Roth is nodding again. 'And easy,' he says.
'No,' says Carla. 'Not easy. Simple.'
And there you have it. She's summed it up. It wasn't easy. It was unimaginably difficult to override your instincts and your socialisation to take a life that is not yours to take. None of them are. But it was simple. To overpower and fatally wound was a simple enough task with this amplified strength and power. They were weaker, frightened, vulnerable. The fear made them panic and the panic clouded judgement. I'd not seen it much, but enough. More than enough.
'I got away from them and the same thing happened again about a week or so later. They showed up within a few hours. I was still on the high. Shook them off. In hindsight though, hard to think that it wasn't part of their plan. What you've said,' she gestures at me, 'seems to confirm that. Plus this…'
Carla fishes into her jacket and slides out a zipped leather pouch.
'The fuck is that?' grunts Roth.
'After the second I was pretty close to ending it. Couldn't do it again. I was nearly out of my mind with it by then - all the fear and confusion, the realisation that Frost wasn't kidding me on - and I ended up jumping some jogger in the park. Young girl really, no more than nineteen. She didn't scream. Just sort of whimpered and the whole time she just stared at me. Right in the eyes. Just stared,' Carla's eyes are glazed and it is obvious that she is back in that park and fixed again on those pleading, dying eyes.
There's a moment's silence and Roth sticks his hand up. 'Uh. What the fuck is that?'
Carla gathers herself. 'Epipen.'
Roth looks blank.
'Are you allergic to blood?' I ask but feel immediately stupid for being glib.
'I'm a nurse. Was a nurse. And I had this little flash that the reason it felt so incredible after feeding - or what was Frosts's word? Replenishing - was the adrenaline. Not the blood or the iron in it or anything to do with red or white blood cells, plasma. It's the adrenaline. It's like a drug, like a shot of energy, really concentrated. It releases glucose into the blood which is basically fuel, and it makes the heart beat and sends more blood and oxygen to the muscles. That's why we're so fast, so alert.'
'That's what they told me. They said you had to make them scared when you killed them so they had loads of adrenaline in the bloodstream when you replenish.'
'Right. So I took a shot of this when I felt the hunger coming back and I was fine again. And they didn't show either. Never seen them since.'
She shrugs at me before I can ask the question. 'No idea. Must be something to do with the act of killing, or the scent of the blood that they are tuned into. Maybe we give off some signal of some kind, some pheromones or something. Who knows? The point is, this is why I've been three years free of them.'
I am elated and horrified all at once. Overjoyed at the chink of light that Carla has just shown me in the darkness, that I may not be so trapped and enslaved as Frost and Stanford had convinced me I was. But at the same time I am aware that I will never wash the blood off my hands of the lives I have taken. I can tell myself all I want that a scumbag rapist and a vagrant with no life, no family, nothing to live for were low hanging fruit and the lesser of any number of evils for me to commit. But they will not diminish what I'm responsible for.
Once again I realise that it is Frost and Stanford who bear the ultimate responsibility. Which is why they must pay the ultimate price.
'That's it then is it? That's all? A fucking allergy pen?' Roth looks angry and incredulous and like he's about to regret his decision to throw his lot in with us.
'No Roth,' replies Carla, pulling out another small vial from the pouch. 'That's not all.'
Chapter 49
The limp, pale body of the drug dealer lies in a stairwell somewhere and will soon be attended by police but it is only for that single act that Roth is able to maintain a facade of calmness and conceal the agitation he feels.
He had been hoping that these two that keep being mentioned, this Frost and Stanford, would finally respond to his signals and return to him, give him answers. That Laing should show up on that TV screen in the window of the high street electrical store was something of a consolation prize for Roth to claim, but this girl is something else entirely.
Certainly he had not intended to find himself in this situation. Sharing cabs and information, making plans and apparently forging an alliance against a common but unknown enemy. Unknown at least to Roth.
Carla and Laing appeared to know plenty about them and this galled Roth all the more. They had sought to escape them but had yet been granted their audience with Frost and Stanford whilst Roth's increasingly strident demands went ignored and unheeded.
Making a scene outside the hospital was not something he ought to have worried about after what happened on the London Eye but he'd felt a degree of calm and control settle on him and the need to vent his frustration had drained away once she had subdued him so easily. He did not know what he was fighting for now, what he was angry about, though he was beginning to get a sense.
These revelations being exchanged between Laing and Carla seemed more like two people catching up on some well known information as Roth stood and tried to soak it all in. Not just the nature and strength of who they were up against but the cold simple fact of what he had become. What they had made him. He'd had every suspicion of course, but these confirmations and details were racing at him faster than he could process them.
The need for adrenaline, the gifts it bestowed, the facts of life that he must face so far as risks were concerned and the effects of sunlight if he failed to replenish with sufficient frequency. These things he had begun to figure out, though could scarcely accept that they might be true. Roth had found himself trapped in some baffling and senseless nightmare which had begun with such promise. He had indulged his penchant for violence, his enthusiasm for it and the thrill of such recklessly spent rage
.
But with the odds so hideously skewed in his favour something seemed missing. It just wasn't fun when they stood no chance. Roth had begun to feel that whatever fury that he was venting, whatever spring of frustration and anger on which his violence drew was running dry. He had watched them plead and scream and fade away and each time he did it the sense squirmed further under his skin that it was not he that had something to be so furious about; he who had somehow been handed this chance to cheat death when others had it thrust on them so carelessly.
Nonetheless, he'd had no choice in this and would need to adapt and change to whatever it demanded of him. That lack of control galled Roth, that he should be denied any say in so big a change. Worse than that, he was not really being handed some gift, some shot at an immoral immortality but was merely game. He was sport to be hunted down and when finally felled, to be feasted on. A carcass to be tossed away.
Carla was talking again. Roth tried to keep up.
Chapter 50
For my excitement at this prospect of a solution to the dilemma that has so plagued me, I am still not seeing how Carla's ingenious idea is going to help us here.
'I've found a few guys that I can source it from anyway. Don't ask questions, take cash. Ideal really.'
'So how much do you need? More to the point, how much do you have?' asks Roth.
'Weekly shot does the trick. You can more or less function as normal. More often than that if you want to really have some fun but it does tend to keep you up and frankly, you need to sleep. Not just to recuperate but to switch your brain off. It can start to get a little fucked up if you're on the go for too long.'
'What's too long?' I ask.
'I was awake a whole week once. Out at clubs, theatre, cinema. Reading books, long walks. It’s amazing how much you see, you know? Everything is just… more. And I was getting really into all sorts and wanting to experience everything, consume everything. Anyway, I kind of hit the wall and had to take a break from it. Slow everything down.'
'Ovaltine and an early night?' I smile.
'Something like that. I actually got one of my guys to get me something that would do the opposite of the epinephrine. Tried morphine and that didn't do much. Ended up taking some histamines.'