Celestial Witness

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.

Fog

I'm awake and out of the flat early. I walk outside into the inky dawn to find the world smothered by a blanket of fog, squeezing and choking the life out of the Earth for its sins.

I walk across and out of town. I got lucky last night, I heard the Eigonvectors are hiding out in Stanmer House, and they have a hostage. It can only be Baltam's cousin. I try to focus, center and calm myself on the hour long walk. The air is thick and heavy, cool on my face. It hides the corners and edges of the world from me. Secretly, I thank it.

The estate stands grand and square in Stanmer Park. Grey light fills the world, fog seems to swirl around the building. Last I heard, it was recently restored a usable state. I wonder that no-one has forced the gang out. How high does their influence spread?

I sneak in the back, through a kitchen door, Faith resting loosely in my hand. This time of day, none of the bastards will be awake. Inside the house is all stone floors, grand ceilings and dust sheets hiding furniture. I sneak around, poking my head through doors. In the entrance hall a set of stairs leads upwards. I follow it. Chinese gangsters lie in some of the rooms, most collapsed in a heap of empty bottles.

The Baltam kid is chained to a radiator in on of the bedrooms. A guard starts up when I sneak inside, drunk and confused. I tell him to sit down. I insist. He doesn't get back up. I cut the teenagers handcuffs, and lead him back out onto the corridor.

My luck runs out when I reach the entrance hall again, standing on the landing. Someone heard something, and the Chinese are waiting for me. Shots ring out as I round the corner. I fire back meekly, staggering behind some cover. I call to the Baltam kid to hide behind me. He lies on the floor, unmoving, blood seeping underneath him like he was a leaking bag.

That sick feeling rises in my stomach, stretching icy tendrils through my gut and up into my throat. For a moment, it threatens to consume me, to drag me under, to pin me down and hold my breath. But I force it down. The kid was dead. After everything. I draw Providence from inside my jacket.

By this point, I can't even feel angry any more.

I rise up in a daze, swing out onto the balcony, and open fire. Everything seems to move slowly. For a time, I can't hear anything above the rush of blood in my ears. Then a wave of something dark passes over me and everything goes red.

The Twins roar their shame and fury with all the bloodshot zeal of a tumor-crazed preacher. Shots echo around the room, kicking up dust and plaster and blood.

Then, after a second, a minute, and eternity of moments, a nothingth of forever, a heartbeat and a lifetime, it's all over. The Twins run out of lessons to preach. I stand and catch my breath in the silence, straining to listen. My throat is red raw, my breaths ragged, and some noise dully echoes through the room, clinging low and rough to the corners. But I don't remember screaming out.

Everything is quiet now. I carefully raise the corpse of the missing Baltam. The kid can't be more than seventeen. I walk out through the front door.

Walking back down Stanmer park, the air begins to clear. To one side of me, rich blues seep through the air, getting stronger and brighter by the minute as the air comes to life. To the other side, the thick fog boils and rolls, burning away before my eyes at the pure touch of the Sun. I stop and watch, straining to watch the movement of grey air which vanishes moments after I look at it. It is an eerily beautiful moment, the sky torn smoothly between pure white and brilliant blue.

I shift the Baltam kid on my shoulder, and keep walking.

Tricks

I decide to get some air, visit some informants. I'm drowning in the stale air of the office again: the streets welcome me, cobblestones whispering their stories as I pass over them.

I find Arbon and Amoe doing a routine near the jewellers. These guys are artists. Arbon sits on an upturned milk pallet, strumming away on a bass guitar. I stand and watch from the corner. A small crowd has gathered round - it's a nice day, and Arbon is putting on a good show. I spy Amoe creeping round the crowds. If you didn't know what to look for, you'd never notice him pinching wallets and phones from pockets. Today's his lucky day: a girl takes out her white earbuds to listen in. Quick as a flash, Amoe unplugs the headphones and swipes the iPod from her pocket. I wonder how long it takes people to realise they've been swindled.

I prefer the 'free hug' scam, myself. They'll stand in Churchill square with big poster signs and warm, fuzzy hats. As giggly school girls and lonely parents are coaxed into a hug, the boys swipe whatever they can get from rear pockets and handbags.

Artists.

Arbon finishes up the song, and I walk over. These two know the streets better than anyone. They give me some background information about the Eigonvector Gang. Not much - their turf, typical activities. No names, but it's a start. The boys are good to me, I barely even have to coax the information out of them.

Amoe and Arbon are always good to me. Ever since I helped them out with a police officer who got wise to one of their games. It was easy enough to do, but it bought their loyalty. Maybe even their friendship. All it took was a hooker, a video camera, and a jar of vaseline. The case was dropped the next afternoon.

Arbon packs up and heads off. Amoe waves, turns and walks off. I call to his back, politely asking for my wallet back. He grins wolfishly and hands it over. I know that the twenty pound note inside will have vanished. Service rendered, service paid.

The boys are good to me.

Four Seasons

When you don't sleep, mornings and evenings lose meaning. Night and day fade, merge, and get confused. Everything becomes an eternal twilight. Things start to lose absolute meaning and shift around on scales. You become constantly part awake and part asleep; part dreaming and part seeing; part in the world, and part out of it. Constancy becomes a myth, a rumour, a dream. How I dream to put my head down and have the world go quiet.

But I can't sleep. Not now. Thompson is out there, somewhere. A kid worth a months rent is held by some unknown gang. I don't know which is more terrifying anymore: the clients, or the jobs.

At some stage in this grey dream, I managed to find a moment of clairty. The letters '4C07' have bounced around my skull for days now, a pneumatic drill bearing on my nerves. But in a moment, a half-forgotten daydream, it makes sense. 4C. The Four Seasons hotel. Room 07. Before doubt can cloud my mind once more, I holster The Twins and drive over. I can only hope that the trail hasn't gone cold.

Midnight, and the road stretches before me, dazzling and burning under streetlights and neon signs. I have to wind the window down to stay awake: the cold air whips and stings my skin, soothing and agonising like a sadists wet dream.

The Four Seasons is a tiny hotel just off the sea front. If I wasn't trying to track down my potential murderer, I might have thought the place quaint. I walk up the steps to find the door locked. No suprise. Luckily enough, I've done this before.

I steal inside, keeping Faith close. Room seven is on the top floor. The floorboards creak, but there's no other sound. I wait on the landing for a moment, listening for sounds of life. A seagull caws somewhere in the distance. I pick the lock and creep inside the room.

It's tiny. Single bed and wardrobe dual in the dark for space. But there's no one here. The bed is neatly made and turned. The wardrobe is empty. The toilet roll in the en suite is fresh and untorn.

I'm about to leave when I notice the newspaper, tucked between the bed and a tiny bedside table. I draw it out and move to the window, straining to read the paper from the fuzzy glow of the streetlight outside. It's dated the 27th, the day of the Chichester Arms stakeout. I flick through the pages, expecting nothing. But someone is smiling on me: a section of adverts has been torn from the personals page.

Thompson you stupid bastard, I hope it's a bodyguard you're looking for.

Tears of Lead and Fire

Time goes slowly when on stakeout. It's been a long, rainy afternoon. I see a girl walk by in a red coat. I wonder what her name is. She turns a corner out of sight. The Chichester Arms stands in front of me, windows glowing warmly against the cold rain. Just as I begin to wonder what I'm doing there, Thompson himself walks in through the front door.

I check the twins, nestled safely inside my jacket. Seeing Thompson has made me uneasy, so I click off the safety on each. I rise from the car and walk into the pub.

Downstairs is all smoke, locals, and laughter. A smiling barmaid points me to rooms and toilets upstairs. I thank her and head up the staircase, away from the lights and sound.

Thompson stands at the end of the corridor, talking to three goons in leather jackets. His eyes widen as he sees me, and he disappears around a corner. The heavies turn and draw weapons, their blackened barrels gazing sightlessly at me.

Instinct takes over. My mind shuts down and watches as my hands cross my chest to draw the Twins. Rising, they sing their sad song, weeping tears of lead and fire.

In a heartbeat lasting longer than lifetimes, three men were dead. I took a breath and tried to find the silence behind the ringing of my ears. To my surprise, I find it.

Background noise drifts away like smoke as clarity descends. It was a set up. The whole deal: from the vague and nervous meetings with Thomspon, all those months ago; to the carefully placed evidence and gradual disappearence of contacts. Thompson had planned the whole thing. He meant to have me killed.

But something had gone wrong: his eyes told the only truth as he saw me in the corridor. I arrived early. Besides, he hadn't counted on meeting The Twins. As I digest this, I see a crumpled note in the hands of one of the heavies. Prising apart his fat fingers, I read the letters scrawled across it:

4C07

It was a clue. The only one I had now. Everything so far had been a lie. The letters meant something: maybe it was a code, a set of instructions to follow after my death.

No time to think of it now, the Twins had sung louder than I would have liked. Voices carry up the stairs. I head down the corridor, creep out of a landing window, and lower myself into the rain. All I can do now is run: I head to the car, turn the ignition, and power up the lights. Rain streaks gold and silver in front of me.

A girl in a red coat walks past my nearside window. Distantly, I wonder what her name is.

The Job

The rain falls like needles, glinting and flashing beyond the window. Silver streaks all around, and I wonder how rain always falls so quickly. Rain knows where it's headed, and gets there as quick as it can.

I'm jealous of the rain. Jealous of its certainty, its assurance in its cold purpose. I've been in the business for too many years now, and still I can't tell which way is up. Being a private investigator was supposed to be glamorous, different, and challenging. Little did I know. Hell, I was just a kid when I fell into my first case. Like a rabbit caught in a trap: By the time I realised where I was, the only means of escape was to chew my own leg off. Four cold years and I'm still chewing.

The Brighton rooftops are slick with the rain. The office is in the crowded lanes, where too-many buildings fight for not-enough space like peices on a Mahjong board. Gazing from the window, I can see the rooftops clearly. Things are different from up here. Down on the street, everything is cleaned, smartened, and glossed up. Even the damned paths are made to look charming. But the rooftops are honest. The hours when I can stare out at the tiled, mossy rooves are hours when I know what I'm looking at. There's no hiding the filth here. No hiding the seaguls, the rubbish, the forgotton corners or the rough edges. On the rooftops, life is as life seems.

Damn, but it's cold and wet today. Even the seagulls are miserable.

So, four years into the game. Fours years of finding cats, stalking women on behalf of jealous and balding executives; four years of lost teenagers and corner-shop power struggles. It wasn't what I signed on for, of course. But nothing ever is. Life isn't a rooftop. We live life on the streets and in the gutters, gazing into windows in awe and wonder, only to be disappointed when we taste the stifled air and cheap goods inside. Only some of us get stuck in the wrong shop.

I've got a difficult case coming up in the next few days. Results will be expected soon or I may lose the contract.

But I can spare half an hour to stare at the rain.