Degrees of Noir

The Road

2008-01-28T11:40:00.002Z

At least I know what needs to be done.

I rise with sun and head to the office, intending to track down the bastard Scotsman. Today, I will be the hand of justice, and I will make amends. Killing him won't undo the evil he's caused, and it won't get me paid. Will my soul be angry? Maybe. But maybe my hands will stop trembling.

Something is wrong at the office. The door is ajar. I grip Faith silently and prepare myself for whatever is inside.

If it was The Scotsman, I would have been ready. If it was a thief, Faith would have been ready. But the small office was silent, dark, and cluttered as ever. I put Faith on the table and reach for the bottle of Whiskey, my guardian of liquid fire by the phone, and see the note on the table. I'm not prepared for the note.

It's from Charlie. It shows the Insurance Company's head office address, and a time. Underlined at the bottom, it says The Scotsman will be there. And, the big surprise, an apology scribbled across the back. It's a daisy through concrete. She came back for me.

But what does it mean? Ahead of me is a road with two yellow lines that goes for years. I can turn off, or I can keep driving. Charlie's eyes didn't lie to me. She's getting played every bit as much as I am. Times are fierce, times are fine.

Yeah, it goes that way.

I sit in the gloom and let the Whiskey ask all the hard questions.

Starship

2008-01-26T00:01:00.001Z

Anger and hate. That's all I have.

All day I try to starship myself to an island paradise guided by stars. Fuelled by anger and guided by whiskey, I tally up the scores on the insurance case.

The Scotsman practically owns the insurance company, it's his rabid dog. The medical papers I found finally made sense: the company provides life insurance, the names on the reports are potential claimants. Everyone is a grey line on a page, existing in coma, or dementia, or sickness. The company finds the people who are due to die, and it cheats them of mercy. It keeps them hanging on to the world, digging in its claws, so that the Scotsman can keep his money. After a year, sometimes two, of existence, the company can justify taking their names off the books. And as soon as the threat of a claim is gone, the company lets the poor bastards die.

The house always wins.

I figure, somewhere down the line, someone got wise to the Scotsman's game. He panicked, and tried to set me up. He set me on the case to find a red herring, using Charlie to lead me along to all the right clues. I think back to the warehouse, with its TV light and piles of paper. It wasn't chance that had me see Charlie there. She was planting evidence for me to find, not removing it. I had trusted in that serene spirit, and I had almost got caught.

The Scotsman played his hand at the hawaiian bar, out of town. The police should have found me with the bodies, and that bastard would have planted everything on me and escaped his sins.

Somehow, I escaped. I got lucky, although sitting here in the dark with only regret and anger, luck doesn't feel like a lady.

Slack

2008-01-25T11:12:00.000Z

Another meaningless day. I know what I ain't - slack. I've pored over the medical documents, tried to figure out The Scotsman's game, asked around for any dirt on the insurance company.

But nothing is its own road, and I find myself leaving the office for a Hawaiian bar out of town. A peice of paper promised me answers here.

I find the bar closed and quiet - unusual for a Friday night. I make my way into the gloom, alone. Children are scared of the dark beacuse they don't know what's there. I'm scared of the dark because I know exactly what is there. I unholster Providence, flick off the safety, and trust in her light.

Around the scattered tables and chairs I find... nothing. The empty road leads me downstairs into an empty cellar. And here is a different kind of nothing. Bodies, lining the room on cold desks. Nothing pours out of them. Waves of emptiness and hollowness wash over me. They lie still, and it's always a surprise. No matter how hard you stare at them, they never stare back. They never flinch, or stir, or move, or draw breath. But every second you spend with a body, you grow more certain that that second will be the one that it goes for your throat.

And then the nothing explodes into sirens. Red and blue light flickers through the cracks in the floorboard, and megaphones cry out. Come out with your hands up, the voices implore me. We know you're in there, they whisper to me.

There is a saying among honest men. It goes something like this: innocent people don't run away. I never much believed in honesty. And nothing says "guilty" quite like an armed man standing in a cellar full of bodies, alone, in the middle of nowhere.

Only one thing remains: I run.

I tear up the stairs like the basement is on fire. I run to the bar, past the bottles of wine. I'm not proud, I stole a bottle for myself. I burst through to the kitchen, coldly silver and clean, and hear voices of alarm behind me. I kick open the back door, find an alley, and bless the cloudy sky for its darkness. The sounds of honest men follow my echoing footsteps as I run.

Questions race through my mind: why were the police there? How long were they waiting? Why are there bodies in the basement? What is the Company up to?

No-one is more suprised than myself when I run into the answers. I tear around a corner onto a dark street. A car stands parked by the road, lights dimmed, with two figures leaning against it, smoking and laughing. Across the road, I stare into the dark eyes of the Scotsman and the laughing eyes of Charlie.

A set up. It's always a set up. I run again, their lying eyes on my back, and run into the night until I can't run anymore.

Later, I sit alone under a streetlight, the cold wait of Faith resting in my hand. A stray cat purrs up against my leg, and all I want to do is kill it dead for liking me.

I wait for the new light of dawn, and put all the little peices together.

By TV Light

2008-01-24T02:00:00.000Z

I spend the next hours poking around the warehouse building, trying to see what I can find.

The building is dark, and looks to be mostly deserted. I figure that, save for a couple of offices above the warehouse floor, the place has been used simply for cold storage. Square boxes line the warehouse spac, eerie in their silence. I wander the floor, but find nothing in the gloom. Except for dust and old ink.

Seeing Charlie has confused me. She's a magnet to my compass, and I struggle to tell down from up. I follow her subtle scent to the office I found her in. A bank of TV monitors flashes idly in one corner, pictures undiscernable in the snowy haze. By TV light I examine the stack of papers she was leafing through. Most of it is medical papers and jargon: well beyond me, but top of the pile contains a likely starting point. It outlines a meeting at the other end of town, tomorrow night. I don't recognise the names, but finding something that isn't two years out of date suddenly feels like good news. I take a few otehr papers from the pile for good measure - something about coma patients, perscripted drugs, and insurance histories. Bedtime reading.

Outside, the rain is tapping against my window. Why are my eyes so grey? Purple lead me here, it was a solid bet. But I've found nothing but confusion.

I'm just about to leave when I find Pandora's box. A suitcase lies discarded in the corner, hidden by loneliness. I crack it open and leaf through the paperwork inside.

My only surprise at the peice of paper I find in my hands is the fact that it surprises me. It's a list of senior staff for the insurance company. On it, I recgnoise names from the meeting details I picked up earlier. But the big suprise is that, right at the top of the list, up with the wolves in the pack, is The Scotsman.

I take my leave with a shiver running up my spine. Why does the Scotsman want to bring down his own money spinning machine? I suspect I'll find the answers in the lonely hours, tomorrow night, and I know that I won't like them.

State of Things

2008-01-23T23:45:00.000Z

Night shift, and Purple's advice rings in my head all day.

Her tip leads me to a warehouse in an industrial estate, way out of town. I park the car around the corner. The stars are my only witness as I approach the warehouse, climb the fire escape to the second floor, and sneak in the office window.

There are things in this world I trust. I trust The Twins, cool and collected at my side. I trust the rain to fall from angry skies. I trust in the colour Purple. But I don't trust dark buildings with no sign of life, I don't trust littered alleyways, and I don't trust insurance companies.

Providence settles in my hand, the weight of the pistol keeping one foot in reality. But even the Twins can't prepare me for the sight of Charlie leafing through a pile of paperwork in the back office.

She turns at the sound my approach, eyes lit with wildfire, and a wildcat smile flickers across her face. For a time, silence does all the talking we need. Her eyes light every corner of my soul, and I'd swear then that she knew everything about me.

"Take off your shackles," she purred, tucking a pile of papers into a bag. "You won't need them where we're going. You see what happens, happens, and there ain't no straight lines in the state of things."

I take every word and put it somewhere safe inside me. I wrestle every moment to the ground and leave it inside myself, with Future Boy, to come to terms with later. I want to ask her a thousand questions. I want to take her by the hand and forget the world keeps on turning round. I want to make myself worthy.

She takes her bag and moves for the door with a shimmy that makes cats look graceless. I step across her path, seize her arm. I feel her tense up, feel the breath she draws in, and wait for her to let it out. She doesn't: I take the moment. My heart takes control, and all the wrong things come out.

"Listen to me, but don't die laughing."

The wildcat smile pounces back. Her eyes meet mine and I feel alive like I've never felt alive before. Then she shrugs away from me and heads out of the door, a dozen unfulfilled promises floating in the gloom behind her.

The Door

2008-01-22T23:45:00.000Z

Tuesday nights at the Dorset.

I walk through the door and see that I'm in luck tonight, Purple is there. Anything I need, Purple gets. She's my lucky six, the ace up my sleeve.

The jazz band plays in the corner. They tie the room together with their rythm. Everywhere I look, feet tap and heads bob to the double bass. People close their eyes and smile at the sax solo. People nod wisely, pupils flared, and discuss the guitarist's technique. It's all horse crap, except for the music. The music calls me every week, and every week I answer.

I sit down and Purple tells me everything I need to know. She tells me where I can find Charlie. She tells me where the company does its dirtiest work. She stares me in the eye until I forget why I'm staring back, and tells me not to trust the Scotsman.

I lean back and let the music fill me. I panic at the quiet times, with decisions at the door. But now the music is everywhere and things are looking up, and Purple is still my favourite colour.

Future Boy

2008-01-21T23:32:00.000Z

My friends have all gone and left me. So I decided to come here and see myself as a baby.

I keep a place hidden. It's inside myself, deep inside the fortress. It it I keep all the old versions of myself, all the old layers of innocence. It's here, in the dark, where I keep everything I've had to lose to survive.

It's not often I come here. Only when the whiskey bottle empties, and I have little other place to go.

Fate plays its cruel games. I find myself wrapped up in the swirling currents of the job and the neverending chasm of lust. A day in the office running background checks on insurance companies. Long stares out of the window. Longer shots of whiskey.

I look at myself in the past, and myself now. I speak to myself, I say to myself, "I'm still the future, boy". I know that I will always be what I've become now. But I wonder if it's what I'm supposed to be.

And somehow, out of nothing, I see it. I see what The Scotsman wants me to do. I see a way into the case, into the job. I cast Charlie out of my mind and try to see through the whiskey fog.

The insurance company provides insurance for lives. It values people. It reduces the worth of a life, of a soul, to a number. And when the candleflame goes it, it pays out.

But something doesn't add up. People die all the time, but there's never a payout. The company always has a get out clause. It's always something minor, something no-one would cause a fuss about. But somehow, the dice always roll in the company's favour. The house always wins. The dead don't get their worth, and the suits get to keep their cigars.

The Scotsman was right - something is wrong here.

Emergency '72

2008-01-20T22:41:00.000Z

Candlelight flickers around me. Somehow the faint and flickering glow is comforting. The light is warm, but the flame weak. Everytime the flame wilts and dims, some part of me wonders if it'll come back, or die out entirely. Some part of myself plays this cruel game with the light, daring it to fail so that I can be stronger.

On the other side of the pub, a man plays a guitar. The melody is picked out softly, teasing the notes into the air, easing the tune into my mind. All my colours bleed, I can hear them running. The voices nearby are hushed in respect of the gentle sound.

There is honesty here. Peace, of a kind.

Before me is a file. I tried to bribe it cleanly, but a crook's a crook. A contact tried to screw me out of the deal at the last second - I broke his wrist like I was opening a beer. There's no honour amongst theives, and everyone is a thief in the presence of money.

The file holds answers. By the flickering light, I read about the girl whose calm spirit has set mine aflame. I read about Charlie, born in Crawley, Sussex. I read about her birth in 1972, her employment histiry since 1988, her criminal record since 1989. I tease secrets and truths about this character, and wonder how she can come to be mine.

I close the file and drain the whiskey glass. I leave a tip for the guitarist, and set the file alight in a candle. I leave the pub, contemplating my slow-burning emergency which started in 1972, and has finally kicked into red alert.

All my lust comes down to dust. Can't you hear it crumbling?

Underdog (Save Me)

2008-01-19T18:35:00.000Z

It hung over me all day.

Like cigarette smoke clinging to a shirt, her gaze haunted me every time I let my guard down.

The job had sidetracked me already. I resolved to find out more about this woman, to get another moment of peace, to find that serenity once more.

Once again, I was the underdog. Serenity like that couldn't stay pure with the likes of me. I'd set myself an impossible task.

One night of regret. One day in a dark room. Night comes and I crawl to the Whiskey bottle. But it's a different kind of peace now. It's second best.

Please save me. Save me from myself.

Feeling Oblivion

2008-01-18T23:45:00.000Z

The case came from The Scotsman. Like all of them, he was built like a bomb shelter and looked like he'd been through a war or two. Honest as a rifle and every bit as loud, he told me exactly what he wanted, and vanished.

Of course, what he told me was worthless.

He wanted dirt on some American insurance company. That much, at least, was in my favour. The only business with more dirt than the American kind is the insurance industry. The night rose in mist and rain, and I left the office to search for answers.

I knew a place to be tonight, a place where the right kinds of scum could be found. The Scotsman hadn't given me much, but I figured I'd follow my nose.

The bar was croweded with familiar faces I'd never met. Sometimes, it seemed there were only a dozen people in the world, copied somehow into a million different bodies. I heard familiar laughs from fat men, raucus cries from fat women, saw lies seeping out of every pore like sweat. I used every disguise I have to melt into the crowd, and my investigations began.

Looking back, I'm not sure why I went. I had hoped for clues and answers. But as soon as I saw her, I knew all I'd get was questions and regrets.

She moved around the bar like a raincloud bursting across the Sahara. She left a wake of smiles and lingering eyes as she passed, waving and winking. Everyone wanted to be her best friend. Everyone wanted to be her best lover.

My eyes lead a private life of their own as they followed her movements. She moved with more than just physicality - her spirit was serenity itself. She was a cool cloth against the fevered brow of the bar. Her eyes met mine, and her spirit was a balm. She was grace. She was peace.

I was defenceless.

The Twins rested under my coat, cool and heavy, but they were small comfort. My many masks were broken under her gaze, and my gut faught my mind at every decision.

I made my way around the room, speaking to anyone sober enough to speak back, but drunk enough not to think too quickly. I made enquiries, I heard names. But she was always there, or never there. She was like the brightest light in the world - I shrivelled and withered under her brilliance. The world was reduced to sillhouettes in her brilliance. Even with my eyes closed she burned red against my eyelids.

I was lucky enough to find her eyes a second time. The gaze lingered for a second, and I felt peace inside myself. For a second, the world lifted, my rage subsided, she promised to take me somewhere else.

But when her eyes left me, I was more alone than I had ever been. The world came back with a crash, fear took me over, anger seized my heart once more. That single second of peace was destined to cast a shadow which would last a lifetime.

Divided, confused, and feeling oblivion, I left.

The Optimist

2008-01-17T20:00:00.000Z

The Job changes, all the time. I never know what's coming from one day to the next. The extraordinary is just a man under a blanket; the ordinary hides under a black cloak of lies.

Cases end up on my desk all the time, and the only constant is that nothing is what it seems.

It's almost refreshing to see a job and know what the final word will be. It's a rare thing, but sometimes inevitability decides to take a walk in your shoes. Sometimes fate leaves a calling card.

I pick up a paper file headed "JC". My gut tightens, icy claws grip my heart and my lungs fill with burning oil. And, for an everlasting second, I see the future.

This one is going to leave a scar.

Battles

2007-04-28T14:59:00.000Z

Victory has proved an untrustworthy maiden. We danced for fleeting moments while Thompson bled, shaken and defeated, on the tarmac at my feet. But so often she leaves my side, joining the dance with strangers, their smiling eyes and hungry jaws devouring every inch of her. The futher she dances across the room, the greater the emptiness inside me becomes.

I won a battle, against Thompson. But for what? The war continues, all around me. Those I fight for, spy for, steal for; they still go to bed at night with fear in their bellies and dread in their hearts. That which I kill for, lie for and beg for never seems to be enough. Money doens't come in, and thanks is a rare gift in this world.

I left Thompson chained to his car and made an anonymous tip to the police. I thought about killing him. Faith presse against his temple, her cold touch doubtless chilling his spine almost as much as it did mine. But in the end, a longer punishment seemed more worthy for the small time crime overlord. Small time, small change. Small pity.

Life continues to hammer down blows around me, and Victory shies coyly away with each fresh impact. I'm trying to track down Seth's cousin, Grey, whom I now know to be a mob boss in the Brighton drug rings. But he's elusive, grey like smoke and shadow. I haven't heard from K in weeks, and wonder if she lies dead. Baltam doesn't return my calls. A child's dead body is a cost he's unwiling to pay.

And my own war against the bottle continues to bruise and bloody me. It's on my mind all the time. I drink whiskey and hate myself for it. I lock it away and spend all day thinking about the release it might offer. I see strangers happily drink the night away, and I envy their escape, their freedom, and their vices.

The fight continues for another day. Tonight I'll drink myself stupid, wake up in bitter disgust tomorrow and start all over again. Here's to Victory. Here's to wars. Here's to the God-damned human condition.

Celestial Witness

2007-04-26T05:50:00.000Z

Air turns to fire in my chest, blood turns to acid in my veins, and thoughts turn to cloud in my mind. But still I run.

Thompson is just ahead of me. His black saloon car slides through the Lanes, metallic paint and rumbling engine hiding his animal fear. He thinks he can be saved by his mechanised chariot, but my feet are better suited to the cobblestones than his tyres. I tear down the alley, my footsteps echoing back at me, cheering me on, calling for blood. Suddenly the walls fall away to either side of me, I'm out on the road, and Thompson's saloon is roaring down the road towards me.

I stand in its way and stare the beast down. It's headlights never waver, but I narrow my eyes and draw a great breath through scorched lungs. As the monster approachs, I leap up and backwards. Momentum stays on my side and I manage to cling onto the bonnet of the car. My face to the glass, I see the whites of the driver's eyes. All he has to do is break or swerve and I'm so much meat on the pavement. But as his eyes widen and his nostrils flare in fear, he hestitates.
I raise Providence and punish him for his doubt. Two bullets hammer through the windscreen. The glass shatters, spiderwebbing across the surface even as blood fountains against the inside to run down the cracks in tiny rivulets. I pause for just a moment to admire the fire and ice merge on the windscreen, Jack Frosts' touch dances with rivers of flame.

Then I'm rolling, twisting, and crashing to the road with a blinding flash of pain. The car swerves and crashes into a building. In the silent darkness before dawn breaks, no-one stirs at the noise.

I rise from the floor and stretch, trying to push my bones into place. They grumble and complain, scream at me their grievences. No food, no drink, no sleep and too much punishment. I tread over broken glass and pull open the door to the saloon. Thompson huddles within. He opens his mouth to protest, to lie, to try and barter for his life. My fist closes it quickly enough, adding a fresh smear of blood to his face.

I drag Thompson from the car and throw him to the cobblestones.

I stand and savour the moment. After so much strife, and doubt, and pain, it's over. I've won. I gaze at the inky black sky, raise my arms, and offer a silent prayer to the hidden stars, the celestial witnesses that have seen so much of my trial. They know my plight, they've known my pain. I share with them my triumph, and I am filled with a glorius light that no-one else can see. As I open my eyes, I swear that stars flash, one final flourish before the sun rises. A whispered word of congraulations.

Time stands still. Just for a moment. Just forever. There is blood at the back of my mouth, but all I can taste is victory.

Circles

2007-04-24T10:30:00.000Z

It's strange how life goes in circles. Sometimes we run in small circles, the hamster-ball routine of our daily lives. Sometimes the circles are bigger, wider, the enclosed race course of the working week. But even the stars travel in their celestial circles. Against such monumental forces, how are to stand any chance of breaking away?

Stakeout again, and I can't help but think back to the stakeout on The Chichester. All those months ago, that heart-wrenching moment when I discovered that Thompson had been playing me for a fool, and slowly been sabotaging my circle of contacts.

Circles again. My head is spinning. Thompson has been in a large hotel all night, completely unaware of me. I sit under the clouds and wait. I've had no food all day. No damn whiskey either. Addiction tears and pulls at the corners of my mind, desperate for that firey burn, that sweet taste, that dreadful rush of blood, that vile and wonderful wave of self-loathing at another victory against myself. Addiction is like having a firefight with yourself. You win and lose at the same time, but somehow you hate yourself for winning as much as you do for losing. But in the moment of victory, the second of surrender, release and resolve, you forget that you ever hated everything.

Now I'm full of hate. I think about slipping into a late bar and getting a drink. Or at least something to eat. But Thompson is corned like the rat he is, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let him escape this time.

Shadows

2007-04-23T22:49:00.000Z

A shadow moves, somewhere to my right. It drags my gaze with it, and I lose track of another shadow, just in front of me. I curse and crouch down lower. Closer to the earth. Closer to the dampness of the grass.

The night air is still for just a moment. I hold my breath and listen to the blood race through my ears.

Then a bullet tears through the air, cracking the silence, whispering through a hedgerow and snapping violently into the wooden fencing beside me. I curse and rise, pointing Faith towards the shadowed doorway and firing three rounds back into the anonymous darkness.

Another shadow moves to my right. Is that Thompson, or was he in the doorway? I'm suddenly forgetful and fight down a wave of panic. I see the figure more clearly, running across the grass of the Pavillion gardens. I raise Faith, cool against my cheek in the cramped space, and fire again. I'm rewarded with a scream and the shadow falls, fading into the grass, a shadow within a shadow.

The victories rarely last long. More bullets fire into my slim shelter. I throw myself over the fence behind me, roll across the gravelled floor, and run around the edge of the garden. Bullets follow me for a while, worrying my heels, but soon I'm lost to them too. I peer back into the night, trying not to breath too heavily. Treacherous air clouds before me as I breathe. It's cold tonight.

I've been stalking Thompson for most of the evening. He was at some drugs lab in Chichester, just as planned. I couldn't get inside the run down building, it was surrounded by growling muscle. But I followed him here into town. It was all too easy, until the stones started crunching underfoot here in the Pavillion gardens.

Voices shout out in the darkness. I can't make out the words. A huddled figure slips away from an alcove near the Pavillion and shuffles away. That's Thompson alright. I put Faith to rest by my side, and creep after him into the night.

He's close now, and he's got no-where to run to.

Dirt

2007-04-22T20:59:00.000Z

The Seth Files don't get much attention these days. Seth's a shady character with beady eyes I can't trust. He wants me to dig up some dirt on his cousin, Walter. In my line of work, I see tough jobs and I see dirty jobs. Seth has handed my a brown sack full of the latter. It's all I can do to keep away from this crap, but sometimes the music just demands a dance.

Walter has life pretty easy. He's got an income with the zeros on the better side of the commas, a car that sparkles in the right places, and a wife who smiles sweetly on demand. He's all gravel drives, white fencing and warm handshakes. I've not been able to get a thing on the guy. Even clean people get dirty fingernails from time to time. But Walter doens't even make a mess when he's on the can.

Imagine my surprise when I discover that Walter is well known in the CCNR as a mob boss called 'Grey'.

I get to hear a lot about Grey. I hear his name whispered in threats, screamed in curses and offered in temptation. In my own silent investigations trying to track down Thompson, I've stumbled into Walter's own shadow, and found that when Walter takes a graceful bow, Grey takes a vengeful swipe. This guy's shadow doesn't even touch his feet, for fear of being connected to him.

But I see the connection alright. All I need is some proof of his involvement this deep down, and he's all mine. And, more importantly, so is Seth's fat cheque.

Beneath the Waves

2007-04-21T13:16:00.000Z

After weeks of darkness, I can finally see a light. Just a hint, lesser shadow on a field of black. But the walls are cracking.

I've been undercover. Deep at the bottom of an ocean, so deep that no light dares shine. So cold that the only way to survive is to become as ice. The weight of water presses down, forcing everything to close up tight. When you're that deep under water, even the tiniest of leaks can tear you inside out.

K's last words to me were 'C-C-N-R'. I finally managed to trace the cryptic letters to a drug ring, in the seedy underworld of Brighton. Down deep, where sharks prowl and worse things lurk, I've had to investigate to find Thompson. Making allies, breaking friends, whispering lies and beating truths. It's a deep, deep ocean. For a long while, I couldn't believe Thompson's skin was thick enough for him to live this far down.

But that's what makes him so dangerous. He seems so unconcerning, so totally trustworthy. But when your guard is down, it's easier to slip a silvered knife between your ribs. I've earned that scar already.

Submerged in the frigid waters of the CCNR ring, I've lost track of almost everything. Lost in my own lies and deceits, it's easy to forget why I'm here. Who I am. No, who I was. Who I am now is a drugs runner for a wheel within a wheel within a heaving, dirty machine. Smoke billows, pistons clang together, cogs scrape and oil drips and seethes down every rusted surface. And here I remain, for a little while longer.

Thompson's name is a constant whisper. A shadow, always just out of sight. The deeper I submerge, the closer I get. I think I'm close now. WhenI remember to see past the lies, and find within myself the promises I made long ago, I can almost sense him.

But that's the problem with drowning. You turn around and around until you don't know which way is up, and the air you try to breathe pulls you further and further away from everything you know. Soon you have no air left. No truths, no values, no integrity. Then it's just you, and the endless cold of the blue.

I'm not in the blue yet. My lungs are straining, my head pounding and my back is breaking. But I can still, on a good day, see which way is up.

Thompson will be in one of the Chichester drugs labs on Monday. And I'll be ready.

After all, bullets don't need to breathe.

Styx

2007-04-04T23:00:00.000Z

I head out to town to see Arbon and Amoe, try and pick up some information about this mysterous CCNR. It means nothing to me, and I'm walking blinder than blind. Arbon has been one of my best informants lately. If I can catch him in the right mood, I'm bound to gather some information.

I stop by the office, darkened and locked up, to gather my mail. I open it while walking down the quiter streets in the North Laines. In these sheltered streets, footsteps echo a long way, and there's no crowds to hide secret threats. I tear open the first letter - another dangerously low bank statement - and listen to the scream of the ripping envelope, deafening in that absolute silence. But I'm alone, and can forgot about watching my back for five merciful minutes.

Locked in this shroud of safety, this blanket of apparent invunerability, I barely hear the soft tick, tick, tick when I peel open the second letter. Something dark grips my stomach with frigid tentacles, and I stop, alterted to an unseen danger. I hear the ticks in the silence. The tentacles tighten in my gut, a chill creeps up my back like a cadaverous lover's touch, and still I can't see the danger.

Then the ticking strikes a slight discord, and I realise I'm not wearing my watch. It's all I can do to hurl the thin paper envelope away from me and crash to the ground. The letterbomb erupts suuddenly, violently, heat and noise washing over me like the waves of the river Styx, crashing over me in firey plumes while the Ferryman tows another victim to an eternity of torment.

I open my eyes, and thank all the powers on the Earth that I'm not the Ferryman's victim today. I wearily pull myself to my feet. The bomb must have been from Thompson. He's getting bolder. He knows that I'm not going to quit, and is taking stronger measures to get in my way. This is the first direct contact I've had from him since staring into the suprised whites of his beady eyes all those weeks ago in The Chichester.

So. Nothing to do but carry on with the day's business. I only hope that the other letter wasn't anything important. With a little luck, it'll just be another unpaid bill notice.

Arbon isn't in Churchill Square, his normal haunt. I walk around for a while, trying to find him. No sign, he must have earned a day off. Lucky kid. But he works hard enough, earns his breaks.

I turn and head for home. I pass the office - still dark, still standing. It's safer for me to avoid it for a few days.

Besides, I've plenty of whiskey at home.

Crossroads

2007-04-02T23:55:00.000Z

Midnight, and the whole world seems quiet. Like the sound's been turned down by some all-powerful being, turning away from the soap opera of our lives to answer the door or argue with His wife. Tonight, I thank him for the silence, however long it may last.

The morning took me on the usual rounds of late. The office, the Bridge, Henny's, desperatley waiting for some sign from K. Mercifully, it comes. As I walk into Henny's, I catch a crane resting on a windowsill. I take it and leave the café, opening the folded paper as quickly as my trembling fingers will allow.

K is alive. The note is all innocent pleading: she didn't know about the trap. She asks to meet me
at the Bridge in the late afternoon. My head is full of perfume, confusion and anger. It could be yet another trap. I go anyway.

For once, I'm at the Bridge first. I speak to the barman and seat myself in the darkest corner I can find. The place is quiet, amost empty. I can't see anyone who might want to kill me. I try not to let myself relax. I'm just about shaking with paranoia and impatience when she enters, striding across the room. She doesn't look around her as she enters, doesn't stop to acknowledge anyone or anything. She's a bullet fired from a gun, heading towards the bar. The barman points in my direction.

She tells me what Thompson is onto her now, too. She tells me that she can't get to him anymore. She tells me I need to step back and leave him alone. She tells me to drop my damned thirst for venegence. She tells me coolly, calmly, her eyes never once leaving mine. Her cigarette slowly burns away in her outstretched arm, ash tumbling to the table, forgotten.

If Thompton is onto her, then K can't help me anymore. She'll just get herself and me killed. So I play along, nod genially, promise to drop everything. Her eyes betray nothing, I don't know if she accepts my lies. She stands and leaves. She doesn't say goodbye, but she does turn and whisper something to me.

'C-C-N-R', her lips say. Then she's gone, out of the door.

In the silence of now, I ponder those cryptic letters. They mean nothing to me. But they means something to K, and I'd bet my life, and hers, that they're the path to finding Thompson and ending all of this.

Sunset

2007-03-31T18:42:00.000Z

The bloodshot sun falls from the sky. I sit in my apartment, a not-so welcome change of scenery, and watch the hazy sky turn from deep blue to violent red. The sun glows brightly, darkly, agonisingly, leaking blood into the falling skies. The redness flows along the crest of the distant rise of Hollingdean, spreads out and across Lewes Road, and inches towards Moulsecombe and myself, sitting in the dark, watching the desperate death of the day.

As I watch the sunset - so powerful and beautiful in its bold and terrible colours, so slow and dramatic in its stark artistry - I am reminded that everything bleeds.

I still haven't heard anything from K. I'm beside myself, outside myself. Did she betray me after all? Worse, was she captured? I can't understand my obession with the woman; beyond the arrogance, power and grace in that slender body, something about her has claws in me. I make a silent oath to my whiskey that if she gets hurt in this even Thornton won't stop my thirst for revenge.

I've tried to keep myself distracted during the day. I've gathered up everything I have on Seth's over-acheiving cousin. I've collected all the accounts and the family historys. I've found the areas that are just too clean. I'll give that to Seth as a start. The guy is beside himself now. Last time I saw him he was practically shacking with the anger and humilation of his cousins' higher position.

But even as I work through the details of the investigation, I keep one I fixed on the door, the window, the phone, anything which might betray some hint as to K or Thompson's whereabouts.

Henny's

2007-03-30T16:33:00.000Z

The Thompson Project has exploded again. I don't know where to go or what to do. But the clock keeps ticking, and it's only a matter of time before things start to burn.

I head into town, find a nice quiet joint called Henny's. It's a nice place to lie low and think things through. There aren't many shadows in that clean, white café. Besides, the serving girls there always have a nice smile for me.

Henny's doesn't sell whiskey though. I make do with a coffee, and tell myself that if it was the kind of place that sold whiskey to guys like me, it wouldn't be the kind of nice quiet joint where I could think. Doubtless the watiresses wouldn't smile so easily either.

I write out a note for K. I tell her to leave a message for me here, tell her not to come back to the office. I don't like to think that she crossed me deliberatley yesterday. It woudn't be the first time a pair of glittering eyes had deceived me, but K didn't fit the pattern. I warn her that Thompson might be onto her.

All I can do is leave the note with the nervous barman at The Bridge. I almost feel bad for not folding the thing into some work of art. I seal the envelope and leave the barman with some instructions and some extra paper notes. God knows whether K will ever see the message, but I have to try.

Fire

2007-03-29T10:30:00.000Z

I head out to Pevensey in the car. Rain hammers on the metal roof, screaming in my ears as the vehicle roars down the highway. The cacophany of nature and machine makes a tense, hissing soundtrack as I consider the encounter ahead.

K tells me I'll see Thornton in Pevensey this afternoon. Seems he has some sort of business in The Crown in the town centre. I still don't know if K is to be trusted. Just the scent of that perfume makes my head spin like some horrific theme park attraction. Only enter if you are this emotionally insecure.

I park the car around the corner from the pub, and walk inside. I keep to the walls and circle the place, trying to avoid notice. Why is it that being deliberatley inconspicuous always attracts suspicious stares? But there's no sign of Johnson. I'm just about to leave when I detect a trace of perfume in the air. My stomach lurches. K was here. A shadow moves across the room and slips out the back door, heading for the beer garden. An inconspicous shadow. I reach inside my jacket and settle the Twins, flicking off the safety switches.

I open the back door and look out over a courtyard garden. A children's play area sways in the slight wind. The rain has stopped, so I step into the courtyard to get a better look around.

That was my mistake. The shout was theirs.

Everything happened at once after the shout. Movement came from either side of me, shadows seperate from the sides of the building. Instinctively I drop to a crouch. My hands cross my chest, draw the twins, and fire a single round either side of me. A shadow drops to the ground to my right with a scream. But the other shadow keeps coming. I rise to meet him, and we struggle backwards, locked in a voilent embrace. I twist and push, sending him tumbling over a wooden bench. My foot stops him rising. My fist sends him into darkness for a while.

All this voilence makes me thirsty. I head back into The Crown and order a whiskey from the bar. It was a trap after all. The question now is, did K set me up deliberatley, or was she discovered? I'll find no more answers here, Thompson will be long gone.

The barman asks after the fresh swelling on my face. I give him a stare that sends him skuttling across the bar to a fresh batch of customers, and walk out.

Smoke

2007-03-27T16:36:00.000Z

I walk into the office today to be suprised again. Another paper crane sits on the only blank space on my desk, a tower of calm grace among a chaotic litter of papers and files. I try to slow my heartbeat. It's a time bomb, I remind myself. Sooner or later, this will end in blood and tears. It always does. Still, my hand trembles slightly as I reach out - gently, as if any sudden movement might scare it into flight - and lift the crane from the desk.

I unfold it, fingers fumbling in haste. My only lead in days, and chance to get closer to K. I can barely contain myself. But I can't lose myself now. I stop, put down the crane, and steady myself with a glass of whiskey. Its fire at the back of my throat helps burn off the nerves. Strange how I can only think straight when my mind is swimming.

The crane is from K alright. She wants to meet with me again, at the Bridge. I walk out of town right away. The gentle exercise gives me time to think and collect myself. But the sun is too bright. Too many days inside pouring over bits of paper. My tired eyes wince against the light. Eyes to the pavement, I walk.

I get to the bridge and wait at the bar. I eye up the joint: balding men hide behind thick puffs of cigarette smoke. The place stinks of nicotine and stale beer. She gets the drop on me again, her perfume a kick in the nuts as soon as I taste it. I don't say a word as she takes a seat by my side, save to catch the barman's eye and order a glass of red wine. She takes my whiskey and throws it back. I order another before the barman skuttles away.

K tells me that Thompson is hiding just out of town. Seems he'll be in Pevensey on Thursday afternoon. I accept my whiskey with a nod to the barman. I don't know how to play this, it reeks of a trap. But if she wanted me dead for Thompson, she could have had me at any time in the past week. I ask her where she'll be on Thursday. She just gives me a cool smile, and leaves me alone with my alcohol and the cigarette smoke of strangers.

Searching

2007-03-21T20:28:00.000Z

Nothing makes sense. The walls are closing in again. Thompson is out there, but where? Where? And all the while I'm driven round in circles by the hint of a scent of a womans perfume. Damn Blue, you're getting in too deep already.

I've been over everything I have today. Every contact, every file, every old clue and every memory in the dark corridors of my mind. Nothing has brought me any closer to Thompson. I have half a mind to march in on Thornton and demand to know what he knows. Or to offer my services, to punish Thompson for his failure. I even take my long coat from the door and rest Faith in her holster. But I know it's foolish. Thornton would have me shot on sight if I went anywhere near him. K made that perfectly clear.

So here I am, shouting at the walls and kicking over furniture. It's cabin fever and there's no way out, no-where to hide. I need something new, something fresh. Seth and Baltam are forgotten, I have to track down Thompson.

Or have the rules changed while my back was turned? Some instinctive fever for revenge and vindication courses through my veins like hydrolic fluid, burning oil tearing through an engine, red hot flames chewing up a building. I begin to think that it's not Thompson who lit this fire though. Why does it now burn so brightly, and so hot? No, there's something more to this.

K stands always over my shoulder, just out of reach, a glowing cigerette in one hand and burning match in the other.

Blinds

2007-03-20T11:35:00.000Z

The meeting with K has had me all mixed up, scattered my thoughts like ashes on the wind. I can't understand why she's helping me. Might just be my winning smile, but I don't like the taste of that biscuit. No, she has some sort of motive. Could be that she's working for Thompson herself, to gain my trust and put me off the scent. But why go to the trouble? Why not just kill me and have done it with it?

To top it all, everytime I turn my head I get a faint taste of that perfume, and it all comes rushing back in an arctic breeze.

Lights off, whiskey cradled in my hand, I gaze through the blinds of my office at the world outside. It's cold tonight, no-one moves. I try to decide whether to sleep here, or head home to my apartment. These days, the office is more home to me. Besides, the flat has dreadful views. I feel trapped there, stuck in the dark, waiting for the alcohol rush to pass and a new day to dawn.

None of it is getting me anywhere. I still don't know where to find Thompson, and I've still got nothing on Seth's cousin.