Nina fell to the floor, crying out, tears rolling down her face. But Barker didn’t cry. He stumbled backwards, nothing making sense in his mind. How could this have happened? Why was Jack even driving in the first place?
‘Sir..?’ came the distant voice of the police officer. ‘Sir, we believe the accident was the result of Mr. Lowes driving under the influence. He was out to buy cigarettes.’
Barker’s head raised slowly, and his eyes met with the police officer’s, sparkling with not sadness now, but fury. ‘I trusted him…’ His voice was hoarse and angry. ‘I trusted him with this…ten years…ten years and he kills my daughter…’
The street around faded into darkness, the images whirling in Barker’s mind. He felt like there was a chasm opening up inside his head. 2 miles away, Jack Lowes sat in a cell, filled with painful guilt. Little did he know that May’s death had not been his only sin that night.
* * *
Light flickered through the tiny barred window of the dark room. A tear ran slowly down the man’s cheek, dropping onto the photo gently, staining it. From the faded patches on the picture, it was clear this was not the first.
* * *
There was no colour in the small holding room. It was concrete, both floor and walls. Not even a tiny chip of faded paint graced the blank plaster. It was lifeless. There were only four things in the room; a solid metal table, two fold-out chairs, and in the corner, a security camera whirred softly as it scanned the room. In one of the chairs was a man. His eyes, once bright and blue, were dull, glazed, as if he was somewhere else entirely. His pale, tired skin was drawn tightly over a ragged frame and his head that once sported a proud black Mohawk, was now covered in a long, tangled mop of greasy hair, with thick stubble covering his cheeks. His eyes were hooded. He wore just the dirty blue overalls supplied by the police. The only sound in the small room was the sharp tapping of his yellow nails on the table.
The door opened with a creak that in the normal world would have been gentle but in this cell was loud and ominous. The man in the chair did not look up. A police officer, neat and tidy with shirt and tie, eyed the man with disgust before gingerly sitting in the chair opposite. The man continued to tap at the table, apparently unaware of the officer’s entrance. The officer held up a small clear plastic bag, that contained a white powdery substance. ‘Mr Riley…’ began the police officer. Barker’s eyes darted upwards. They shifted around the room, eyeing the burly security officer guarding the door, and the dark concrete walls that trapped him in this place.
‘Mr Riley, have you ever seen this substance before?’ asked the police officer slowly, as if speaking to a child.
Barker laughed a shallow, husky laugh. ‘Yes officer, I know what cocaine is. I’m not an idiot. I’m not a drug addict either. Don’t patronise me.’
The officer’s sympathetic, understanding look was replaced with a cold detachment. ‘May I remind you, Riley, that you are guilty of attempted murder. You claimed that scarecrows and clowns were spies and assassins involved in a conspiracy against you. You must forgive my suspicions.’
Barker smiled to himself, his fingers still tapping at the metal. The police officer stood up and paced the room.
‘A shame too…Miss Nina Fallon tells me you were an alright sort of guy until about two years ago…’
The tapping stopped. Barker look up at the police officer, his face contorted into some kind of painful anxiety. ‘She was here?’ he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
‘Mr Riley, you tried to kill her, of course she was here.’
‘What did she say?’
The police officer smiled a satisfied sort of smile.
‘She denies your claims that she was ringleader of an elaborate plot to take your life, of course. She told me she hadn’t seen you for two years until that night you tried to murder her. Said all that time ago, there was some sort of accident…you were both at the scene together and you just ran, Riley. Apparently, the police tried to get you back, but you got away. It would appear you left her with quite the little sob story, but I couldn’t get any more out of her than stifled tears. How you can believe her capable of plotting against you is quite inconceivable to me.’
Barker nodded. It was inconceivable to him now, too. He hadn’t realised until he’d looked into her eyes that night, seen the terror and fear in them…He realised that his paranoia, his fear, his refusal to engage in any degree of trust, what had taken over his life completely, was just in his own mind, manipulated that day by May’s death at Jack’s hands. In that moment, his feelings had been more than disappointed. He had felt bitter, angry, and every degree of betrayal that Jack had fallen to had pained Barker like a knife, stuck in his back and twisted. If all the trust he had put into Jack had been misguided, how could anyone else be trusted? He took a deep breath.
‘It wasn’t just her…’ he said quietly. For some reason the officer’s cold talk about Nina angered him.
‘Yeah yeah, I know, the whole world was against you…’ said the officer with an exasperated sigh. ‘Look Riley, you’re going away for eight years. You may as well spill the beans. What happened? Couple fight? She slept with the mail man and now you can’t even trust clowns, is that it?’
Barker laughed. ‘You know, you’re not far off. But what happened to me is something no one could possibly understand. I was wrong about Nina, yes, you’re right. I’m paranoid, hell, maybe I’m a little crazy. I might look like a vulnerable lunatic to you. But you can lock me up for as long as you want, you can look at your records and you can find out what happened, and I will never talk about it. What I experienced is something that makes you see the whole world differently. I would love dearly to go back in time, to slap myself in the face, to go back and pick her up off the floor and for us to get through that night together. But I let myself go. Nina’s never forgiving me. The rest of the world thinks I’m insane. What the hell have I got to get out of prison for anyway?’
* * *
The man stood outside the prison gates. He threw his head back and inhaled the thin city air. It smelt fresh to him; after eight years, anything would. The grey city sky looked bright after that dark room. But what now? he asked himself. Where the hell could he go? A misguided fool who acted on his own baseless convictions to one woman, and a jailed lunatic to the rest of the world; where now could he run? The tears streamed down his face, but he couldn’t tell if they were in pain or joy. He’d lost one eye in a prison fight; his head was shaved, and his face had the desolate look of someone who had lost everything a long time ago and had felt he had let the chance to get it back slip away.
‘Barker?’
Barker turned. He blinked slowly, unable to believe his eyes. Nina smiled at him.
Over the years, Barker realised that even in prison his paranoia had haunted him about Nina. He had never trusted her to forgive him, and that was the one thing she had done.
