Delirium

‘Goddamit Johnson, what the fuck has happened there?’

Commissioner Brookes. Fucking overweight twat.

It’s three in the morning. Torrential rain hitting the window was the only noise in the room other than my voice. A suitable setting for a putrid scene: a flat, ten blocks down from mine, within the infamous heart of The Solum. The shithole. A concrete jungle. Where the cops fuck the prostitutes and the crooks fuck the cops.

‘Same fucking thing.’ Taking the cigarette out of my mouth, I blew smoke into the phone. The air was stale, with no windows open. It drifted upwards, creating a ceiling of poisonous haze.

I turned to the window. It was nauseating to look any more at the broken female body sprawled on her torn bed. The blood on the sheets. Her empty eyes, still staring at the grotty ceiling. She was beautiful, by the way. Long blond hair, seductive lips, and a figure most women would die for.

She had been brutally murdered. Her heart ripped from her chest, which was nowhere to be seen. No blood trail. The killer was cautious. Clever. Didn’t make my job any easier.

The smell lingered and mixed with the cigarette smoke. I could only guess how long she’d been lying there for. It was only the tip off from a local hooker waiting on her, which brought me here. Broke through the door. The hinges were snapped on the carpet.

‘Fucking hell,’ Brookes shouted down the line. ‘What’ve the forensics found?’

‘Yet to arrive,’ I quietly returned. They weren’t going to fucking come. They knew better than to send anyone like that down this way. Brookes knew that. He played a shit game.

‘Don’t touch a thing. Twice this has fucking happened within a fucking fortnight.’

‘Because I’m the only cop who cares enough to come this far south.’

‘Yeah, and it fucking annoys me we have to put this on our records. She’s only a prostitute!’

I hung up. Brookes was a waste of space. If the crime wasn’t recorded, as far as he was concerned, it didn’t happen.

I gritted my teeth angrily. No one cared about The Solum. Left to it’s own criminal law. A lost district. Anything that happened here was steered clear by the northern police. The only time they ever paid a visit was to spend their filthy money in brothels, the back end of an alleyway, or anywhere else they preferred. If they had the money, the girls were there for the bidding. As soon as the sun set, the whores came out to play.

No light, apart from the fluttering lamp on the street, illuminated the dishevelled room. Facing the body again, the flicker cast over the female’s hollow chest. She was a prostitute, no doubt. The one before was too. Why? Because they were easy? Both were killed in cold blood. Both by the same psycho. Both times a piece of paper was left to find, with the same scrawled, heinous writing, leaving a message. It lay this time gently placed on the coffee table, next to the bed.

I caught my fragmented reflection in her smashed, wooden vanity table opposite where I stood. She had put up a fight. Glass and hair ripped from her scalp littered the floor, leading to her adjacent bed at the foot of the room. But no blood was spilled until she was securely held down on the mattress - the floor was dirty, but not stained.

Forensics weren’t coming and I wasn’t about to hang around and wait in the flat of a dead whore. I shifted carefully across to the tattered table, trying to avoid staring into her ribcage. The stink coming from it was bad enough.

Refusing to pick up the tainted message, my face stayed stern, but stomach decayed from reading it:

‘The quickest way to a girl’s heart, is to carve through her chest.’

I stubbed out my cigarette in it - I’d seen enough. Brookes would send a body bag in the morning and bury it in the marshes on the suburbs. Just like last time.

If left to Solum law this murderer will probably never be caught. Too slick. Soon every prostitute in the district would be dead. Usually it wouldn’t be a problem – these crooks on the higher end of the criminal wealth ladder would soon do something if their main form of income were being killed off.

Yet something was different about these murders. My gut turned. A bad sign.

Slamming her tilted door shut behind me, I walked out into the street to get home. The rain struck my head hard, my long, brown coat immediately becoming soaked and heavier. Lighting another smoke would be impossible in this weather.

As I walked through the street back to the car, footsteps began to appear behind me. I quickened my pace.

The rain hit the cracked pavement hard, flooding the road.

So did I.

Thrown to the concrete, my jaw hit the gravel, grinding the sidewalk. Nothing. A small scrape. I wiped the grit out of the skin, and rose to my feet. His fist collided with my cheek, leaving blood trailing from my nose. I should have known better to walk the open roads of Solum at night.

But this guy didn’t know who I was.

I grabbed his hand as he came in for a second blow. His teeth cracked as my elbow went upwards into his chin. Quicker than he could react, he was on the floor, as his balls crunched with the impact of my knee. Pulling his head up with his dark hair, he kissed the pavement. When I was finished, every single one of his teeth lay on it. I didn’t let him speak until I was done.

‘Fuck, get off, stop!’ he spluttered through the blood dripping from his mouth.

I bent down to his ear, his face still staring down.

‘What the fuck do you want with me?’

‘Shit, you fucking maniac, let me go..’

‘Not until you answer my question. What the fuck do you want with me?’

Screeching car wheels stopped me crushing his face even more. The headlamps blinded me, reflecting off the fallen rain. The long black vehicle pulled up alongside the crimson roadside.

A tinted window pulled down.

‘Gray.’

Inside sat a dark-skinned man, dressed in white with diamond earrings reflecting the streetlight. Letting the hit man’s hair run out of my hand, I wondered how he knew my name. Grayson Johnson. The only cop which had any respect in Solum. Born and raised here. Somehow I’d made it out of the corrupted system that operated in every corner.

‘Yours?’ I kicked the now unconscious thug.

‘Yes.’
‘Then what the fuck was that?’ I demanded. Nearly had my face smashed in. I’ve got work in the morning. Get an honest wage. ‘You better be god damn grateful I’ve yet to rip your throat out with my teeth.’

‘I’ve had two of my best earners killed,’ he calmly returned. ‘You’ve been seen straight after it’s happened. People are getting suspicious. Dangerous people. You don’t want to anger them.’ His voice was low. Genuine concern. I guessed immediately he was the pimp that ran these streets. All hookers down this part would be linked straight back to him. No point in arresting him. He’d buy his way out of conviction. He was allowed to run, as long as nothing ‘dirty’ went on. Such was the integrity of Brookes.

‘I had one of your whores point me to her flat. She was concerned.’

‘I heard news.’

‘Then why I am I being targeted?’

‘You can’t be too careful. I have a business to look after and it’s just got serious. I’d rather kill you now to make sure, rather than have you leave freely.’

‘I’m the only fucking person which gives a damn. As filthy as they are, these whores are being murdered. And this murderer’s got a different mind than the rest. It’s sick.’ I flinched as I envisioned her heartless chest.

‘You’re the only one around when it takes place.’

The killer was intelligent. No clues left except the message. Not been seen by anyone. Shit.

I took the gun from the inside of my coat jacket. Glock 22. Only one cartridge needed. I couldn’t afford the luxury of being put on their blacklist. I’d be dead within a week. If another one of these killings took place, I’d go and investigate it. Get caught. Get shot.

Before he could move his hands, he had a bullet in his head, the blood exploding onto the leather seats. It ran down his shocked face, into his gaping mouth.

Pushing him to the other seat, I got into his car. The clock caught my eye. It was late. Sleep would be a good idea, but I’d been fucking insomniac for the past month. The pills the doctor gave me weren’t working. ‘Give it time to take effect.’ Fuck off. Two weeks is long enough for it to take fucking effect.

As I returned the gun into my coat, I pulled them out. I popped the top and swallowed two. They had better work. Been a fucking awful night.

I left the hit man to bleed on the pavement and turned the keys in the car. I left town and drove to the marshes with the nameless pimp.