1
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the lush green canopy high above him. It looked like the ceiling of a stained-glass cathedral. The next thing he became aware of was that he was floating, naked, in a warm pool of crystal-clear water. His brain couldn’t connect this present with any recent past, so he stayed motionless. Then he felt something. It was a pair of slender arms sliding around his waist from behind, wrapping themselves around him, giving him a big hug. The next thing he felt was her smooth, naked body against his and her sweet voice whispering into his ear in that familiar Californian accent.
‘Have I ever told you how much I love you?’
‘Only in my dreams, darling, only in my dreams.’
‘Have I ever told you how much I yearn to see you?’
‘I can remember hearing those words, darling, a long, long time ago.’
‘Have I ever told you that I will wait for you forever?’
‘Forever is a very long time.’
‘Sweetheart …’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘There is a time for us, and it is coming as certainly as a comet returns to its sun from the farthest reaches of its universe. So shall I return to you, my soul.’
He felt her arms tighten around his waist and her warm, soft lips kiss his cheek. As he felt these things, he began to feel sleepy again and promptly drifted back into another deep sleep.
2
When he awoke, he was back in his bedroom. He remembered his dream as clearly as all his other dreams. These days he just accepted them. They were his, they were beautiful and they were always of Liberty and of their love for each other.
He felt the pain in his head as he lifted it off the pillow. It was much less severe than the last time he was awake. He lowered his head and tried to fix his bearings. What day was it? What had happened? What caused his headache and the lump on the back of his head? Slowly it came back to him. He remembered Zeke’s disappearance and the
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subsequent search. He then remembered Doyle’s sudden and bizarre change of character.
He tried to think. What else happened? He couldn’t remember anything else. He suddenly sprang out of bed like a startled rabbit. In an instant he forgot his headache and remembered Zeke. He dressed himself and went down to the kitchen. He looked at the clock. It was 8.45am. Rose would be at work by now so he called her. He asked her what day it was and she told him it was Wednesday. He thought for a while and then asked her to cancel the rest of the week’s appointments. He then tried Zeke’s phone. It was dead. He then called Doyle. The phone rang but there was no answer. He made himself a coffee and some toast, scoffed it down as fast as he could, ran to his car and raced up the hill to Zeke’s place.
When he arrived there, he was confronted with a sight that completely bewildered him. Zeke’s hut, his shed, the vegetable garden and all the scattered junk, were all gone.
There was nothing there. It looked like there had never ever been anything there. It looked like it had all been bulldozed and trucked away, but on closer inspection it didn’t.
Adam thought that if it had been bulldozed it would have looked like it had been bulldozed, with marks on the ground and cleared areas. But it looked more like Zeke’s place had never existed. For a moment he felt a loosening of his grip on reality. A chill of fear shot through him like an electric shock. His experience and his memory did not match. What was happening? He sensed himself sliding into shock so he instinctively just let go of it. He accepted it, not trying to understand it. He quickly calmed himself and began to walk around Zeke’s empty block. It was as if Zeke, his home and all their adventures were nothing more than a memory. ‘Less than a memory,’ he thought. ‘A memory would have meant that it had all actually happened.’ At that moment, standing in that empty space, he was completely uncertain whether any of it had ever really happened at all.
He walked back towards his car taking an occasional glance over his shoulder to check whether Zeke’s hut and shed had somehow magically reappeared while he wasn’t looking. He sat in his car for a while, thinking. He began to think that maybe he was in another one of his dreams. After about five minutes he had virtually convinced himself that he was dreaming and that he would wake up at the end of all this. He laughed and whispered to himself,
‘Boy, this one sure takes the cake.’
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He thought and thought trying to remember something he was sure he must have forgotten, something that would make sense of the bizarre circumstances. He was searching for the missing piece of the jigsaw but it wasn’t going to come to him. He finally decided to completely let go of it. ‘Just let it go.’ He turned the ignition key, started the motor and drove off towards Sydney, towards Doyle’s place.
As he rounded the corner into Doyle’s street, he immediately noticed three police cars parked in front of his house. He drove up slowly, curious about all the activity. He stopped his car a couple of houses short of Doyle’s house and noticed that the police had strung up their tape around his front yard, designating it as a crime scene. He stepped out of his car and slowly walked over to a policeman who was standing out in front of the house.
‘Er, hi … uhm … I’m a friend of Doyle’s, the guy that lives in there.’
The young constable looked at Adam.
‘The guy that used to live in there, sir. Unfortunately, he’s been shot. He died instantly from a bullet wound to the head.’
‘What?’
‘Are you a close friend?’
‘Oh, fairly close … Jees …’
Adam was lost for words. The policeman beckoned him inside the perimeter tape.
‘Do you want to have a quick look at your friend’s body before we bag it?’
‘Does it look gruesome?’
‘No, clean as a whistle. Last chance.’
‘OK.’
Adam followed the constable to the front door, which was wide open. There, just inside the doorway, he saw Doyle’s body spread-eagled flat on its back. The constable casually remarked,
‘He got it right between the eyes. See the entry wound?’
Adam grimaced and observed,
‘That’s a really small hole.’
‘Yeah, he got shot with a twenty-two, and guess what …’
‘What?’
‘He tape-recorded his own murder.’
‘He what?’
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The constable chuckled, ‘Yeah, he had a mini-cassette recorder, in his shirt pocket, taping the whole thing. We know who did it and we’ve got him. I might be able to play it for you. I’ll just ask the sarge.’
The constable stepped over to the sergeant and spoke to him. Adam saw both of them look at him and the sergeant nod his head. The constable then picked up a small tape recorder out of the patrol car and brought it over.
‘It’s a very clear recording. Listen.’
Adam listened to the tape. There was the sound of a knock on the door, followed by the sound of the lock unlocking and the door opening. Then there was the sound of Doyle’s surprised voice.
‘Dugan! How did you get out?’
‘Shut the fuck up, Doyle. I finally found ya. This dog’s day has come!’
‘What are you doing here, you lowlife? Shouldn’t you be rotting away in some rat hole? Hey, where did you get the gun? Hey, put that down!’
‘Shut your face, prick. It’s judgement day you son of a bitch copper. I’ve been waitin twenty years for this an I intend to enjoy it, so start beggin for your life you gutless piece of shit.’
‘Listen, Dugan, you moronic slime, did you come here to bullshit all day or are you gonna get on and do whatever it is you came here to do, you pile of putrid excrement.’
Next could be heard the sound of a small-calibre pistol firing one shot followed by the thud of Doyle’s body hitting the floor, which was immediately followed by the sound of Dugan’s voice.
‘Rot in hell, pig.’
The constable switched off the tape and informed Adam that they caught Dugan asleep in Doyle’s bed. He told Adam that Dugan had escaped from the mental hospital, through the sewers, and ‘stunk like shit’ when they caught him. He said,
‘We’re just about to throw him in the paddy wagon. Just stand back a bit because, even though he’s restrained in a straitjacket, he’s got a nasty habit of spitting on people.’
Two burly policemen escorted Dugan out of the house. As he stepped over Doyle’s body, he gave it a good kick, causing the policemen to restrain him more firmly. He laughed out loud in a demented, demonic sort of laugh, showing a set of filthy, decayed teeth. On the way out he glared at Adam and asked him,
‘Who the fuck are you?’
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He then laughed loudly, looked Adam straight in the eyes and boasted,
‘Clean job, eh? I plugged him with a .22 cause I didn’t want the slug to come out of his ugly head. I just wanted it to rattle around inside and blend his fucked-up brain into soup.’
He laughed like a madman as they dragged him into the paddy wagon and drove him away.
‘It sounded like they really hated each other.’ Adam said.
‘Yeah, I think the crazy guy killed twelve people before Detective Doyle finally hunted him down. That was something like twenty years ago.’
Adam watched them place Doyle’s body into a body bag and zip it up. That was the last time he ever saw Doyle. He turned around and walked away thinking to himself,
‘How unlucky was Doyle? He turned out to be number 13.’
…….
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