„The betrayal is a decayed worm that doesn't die when the heart wants it”

„If years pass and life gives us a second chance, will we use it to do good or to finish to destroy everything that we ever touched?! I also don’t know the answer to this question. But yet… I hope that at least once in my life to feel that I really loved someone and to die fulfilled knowing that I didn’t live for nothing in this world,” Keen read these lines written in Emily’s diary that he found fallen under the bed because when Lorenne gathered Miss Davis’things she hurried so much and some of the things „had been left behind.”

One of those things was the diary, and a second one was a small painting in ink that Emily left unfinished on her dressing table: a butterfly.

„Change … metamorphosis… resurgence… hope… life and a new beginning,” Keen murmured while staring at the small painting that at first glance seemed to be just a cartoon, but it had so much meaning reflected in it.

„She wanted to start a new life,” Keen heard Krane’s voice behind him and, smiling, he turned toward the doctor that as always was cleaning his hands with alcohol because even if he was working with the dead ones, what John Krane hated the most it was the misery, especially he hated the human misery.

„And you are right. It seems that Emily Davis started a new life,” Keen answered barely heard, and he tucked the drawing into the jacket pocket he had at his chest. „Did you find something?” he asked the doctor, turning his back to the dressing table on which he found the drawing and looking at those few workers that Krane brought with him to search the „crime place” as he and Keen were thinking to be.

But he expected too much when he brought the doctor and the rest of the workers into Lorenne’s house and Keen had, in the end, to face the disappointment because neither the doctor nor the policemen could find anything on the property that could give proof of Emily and Lorenne’s guilt, even if the detective was more than sure that Albert Shin had been killed by them. However, getting on the property, they found nobody. So, they’ve been forced to break the door and, searching each corner of the house, they found out that Lorenne Fabeau eventually „turned tail” and, with her, Emily Davis’stuff disappeared because if what Lorenne said a night before was true, Emily vanished somewhere, but she took with her no personal stuff. But at that moment, when they searched the house, they found only a few belongings of Emily: the diary in which was almost nothing - only a few thoughts without big meaning and … the drawing. The rest… was just a mess.

„Listen, Krane, what do you think - did our fugitive turn after her things or her… things „vanished by themselves", eventually?” Keen said, smiling unsatisfied.

„I’m more than tempted to think that her „friend” got rid of them,” the doctor said, slightly yawning because the closed-in places not only irritated him but were also making him feel asleep.

„And yet… it seems to me so weird, all this. By Lorenne Fabeau’s account, she didn’t hide anything being afraid not to be involved in someone’s crime. But she hurried up to leave this house eventually and I’m tempted to think that she did this right after I left the house yesterday.”

„It’s because of this, one should never do something while he is burning inside because he can eventually burn himself too.”

„Why do you think so?”

„Because it’s true. If there were evidence to prove their guilt, in this house, Lorenne Fabeau took already care to get rid of it. We’ll find something, improbably. Nothing else, except that limp bed on which certainly a big love took place because at least this is something real and something we have.”

„So, my theory „she gave him pleasure before death,” is real,” Keen murmured.

„I never doubted it, but I don’t agree with you that it was a murder.”

„Why so?”

„Because… there are too many question marks here. First of them and to which I don’t have an answer… yet, is why a man like the dead one didn’t defend himself?! He was in an extraordinary physical condition while the „murderer,” as you described her, was just a tender woman, and certainly, she couldn’t force him alone to drink the cyanide.”

„An accomplice then,” Keen insisted.

„I’m more tempted to think that he did this to himself, with his own hands.”

Keen stared like an idiot at the doctor. „Suicide?”

„You are the one who said that Albert Shin was in love with Emily Davis, right? And that he betrayed her, somehow. And… do you know what kills quicker and for sure? Even faster than the cyanide or the dagger, Keen? The guilt. If and if something killed Albert Shin it was for sure his own consciousness,” and Krane left the room, leaving the detective alone while staring like an idiot at the closed window in front of which the branches of the tree were powerfully moved by the wind because the autumn rain started already to act up, the wind was powerfully blowing around, shaking the nature’s body and the people’s, making them feel confused and forcing them to live sad memories that could be considered, in the most of the cases, painful, to take once again over them.

***

The rain and the strong wind stopped in the evening, but there was felt yet a few odd drops of water fallen from the sky as if they were forgotten tears found deeply in the soul of a body that was slowly shaking, scattering on the ground small pieces of cold heaven.

Walking on the wet streets of Brighton, Keen seemed very tired and this tiredness wasn’t due to the continuous work in Lorenne Fabeau’s house to find evidence, but due to the fact that he had to leave that house with empty hands.

„Where did they both go?” Keen wondered, but no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t find out an answer to his questions and this made him be even more confused than before. „Did I am wrong and it’s like Krane said - a suicide? No, it’ll be too much. It’ll be too easy because if this was really a suicide then neither Emily Davis nor Lorenne Fabeau would have left town. And yet, I cannot find any of them as if they’ve been swallowed by the earth. Damn, you crazy women,” he hissed through the teeth, furiously and kicked a stone met in his way that rolled on the ground far away from him.

Yet, this little outburst didn’t make him feel free of negative emotions. So, Keen stopped, deeply breathed in, and very soon breathed out, trying to calm down. But… it wasn’t as easy as he thought. It took him about 10 minutes to feel that he was again in charge of his own emotions and only after that did, he look around: the city was almost deserted, with only a few hurrying people in the streets, who looked to seem overwhelmed by the rain that fell completely unexpected and because of this their faces looked tired, their clothes were rumpled, and a few of them had also wet garments, a sign that they couldn’t find a shelter to hide of the fury of the autumn wind and of its cold tears.

„It’s so hard with this cold rain falling in the soul,” Keen mumbled and he bristled, pulling the centerline of the coat closer to his body and moving further in a hurry while a lot of questions without an answer were spinning in his mind and that brought him back in time, many many years ago when he was just a newcomer in the police department and he remembered about the first case that was assigned to him.

He remembers that case very well because then like now the dead one „showed up” from nowhere: no identity, no visible signs that he was killed, no traces of the murderer. Yet, Keen’s nose like a bloodhound didn’t betray him, more after he found out that the body had been „left” in an extremely poor area of London, in a kind of blind alley, with few people walking around over there and very dirty because the locals used to throw their garbage there without fear for sanctions that weren’t given anyway because the police had better things to do than to find out who threw the garbage and where - they were too busy to serve those who paid well and this was their urgent business, always.

And maybe nobody would have found the poor dead guy, a man about 30 who fell prey to God knows whom, if not because of the smell - a kind of rotten stink, unendurable, that alarmed the locals, eventually.

At first, they turned against the authorities, shouting in displeasure and cursing, each time they were passing over there, but this didn’t last longer than one week. Later, when the air around was impossible to breathe, they called there the police, but everybody was too busy, as always and they were late to come. So, the locals had decided to take the law into their own hands and, joining their forces, they started to clean the area and carry the misery at the city boundary. This was when they found the body, half unrecognizable already, hidden under the garbage, and this terrify the people so much that they gathered old and young and they went to the police section, in front of which they roistered so loudly that even the Chief Commissioner was forced to work and he ordered, to the first one he met in his way to assign the case to anyone capable to do something to make people leave, but not to apply a lot of effort, of course.

And the one named in charge for the case had been Keen: he had only two months of working in the police, but they named him in charge and they assigned for this investigation two other policemen because everybody considered that because the dead one was already too dead to be identified and it was too difficult too to find who the murderer is, it wasn't necessary to make a tragedy of this. So, this wasn’t a priority case and the one in charge could investigate this only to do something.

But Keen disliked that idea because he considered that a good policeman must do everything to solve the case. So, he decided to do a good job and he focused on finding the evidence, but no matter how hard he didn’t try to find something, he understood that he was just a simple idiot.

He worked hard for about half a year, but he couldn’t solve the case and because of this, he started to think that he was incapable of the detective job if he couldn’t find out at least who the dead one was, or the reason why he had been killed. Keen even thought about giving up on his career as a detective, but his mentor, a man with a lot of experience in this area and who saw a lot during his life, took Keen with him one day, bought him a beer in a good bar and told him: „listen, Keen, I know that all these are too much for you, but you must understand one thing - a detective’s work, nowadays, is to find out the truth that others want to be found out and not the one we should find out.”

Keen didn’t understand then what his mentor meant - part due to his disappointment related to the case, part due to his limited knowledge of working as a detective. But, anyway, he decided to give to himself another chance and to see what was going on in that strange world controlled by power and by money.

And, eventually, he found out what he was looking for: when he started to investigate Helen Walker’s case. It was when he saw what kind of strange and fake mask the high society was wearing and that were others that were leading everything from the shadow. So, when he finally could solve that case and announce Baron Beneath about Alfred Stonebridge and Helen Walker’s location, came the second blow for Keen - Baron Beneath’s death: even if, at first glance, it seemed to be a suicide, with all the evidence, in that case, something wasn’t allowing the detective to normally breathe because a man who planned to leave town the second day and to ask Helen to explain him for her betrayal couldn’t be found dead the same day he promised what he promised to the detective. But yet, not having enough strength inside the police department nor the money to investigate on his own, Keen saw himself forced to abandon the case, eventually, as to leave his job as a detective.

He later recovered from his latent state of mind, after many months of living in the shadows, surrounded by dubious men, easy women, a lot of cigars, and alcohol.

He remembers that it was a late November morning and that it was a heavy rain outside, powerfully hitting the window with its cold drops when he finally woke up after a long exhilaration, into a room furnished in appallingly bad taste, with dirty bedding, unwashed by months, as the clothes he was wearing. He woke up, yeah, but he had a terrible headache and he felt as if it crackles into two, soon.

At first, he stood up in a sitting position, trying to recover his balance and he stood like this, supporting his head with his palms, for about half an hour until he finally felt that he could recover part of his strength. Only then did he raise his head and looked around at the room that had once looked enough clean and warm, but which got, in the end, to be compared with a real hog-pen: his house.

Keen smiled… grievously he smiled, understanding how low he fell. Then, he stood up, approached the dressing table, and he thirsty drank from the water bottle left there by the old lady of the house, who despite the fact that Keen didn’t pay his rent for months already and he was doing almost every day a scandal, she was taking care of him like of a son because she knew that he’d been a very good detective and she believed that it’ll come a day when he’ll turn back to his previous job after leaving behind him the cruel passion of human depression that took over him.

And… she didn’t come to grief when she built upon him because when he looked in the mirror and he saw his tired face, with huge black marks under his almost lifeless eyes, Keen understood that if he continues for long that way, he will end up as the victim he couldn’t find out even his name. So, he decided that it was time to change his strategy and to change his life too: after shaving his long beard, he asked the old lady for some warm water to wash his body and he dressed in the last clean clothes he still had and he looked again in the mirror: „if to live a dog’s life, you’ll die like one. Better to live without consciousness than to die having it clean,” Keen mumbled and he did what he hated the most: he „sold” his soul to those who had money and power, and very soon he got to be considered one of the richest and respected detectives in the England society, but it never brought to Keen what he really wanted: happiness and… inner peace.

Keeping his hands in his pockets, with his hat well drawn over his eyes and with the coat closed up to the chin, Keen rushed along the streets of Brighton because he decided something while walking on the wet streets, swallowed by the thick fog of the evening: that it was time to turn back to London because he felt that namely there, where everything started, will end too, starting this way with finding out the truth about Albert Shin’s death.

***

THE NIGHT OF ALBERT AND EMILY’S DEATH

Sitting half bolt upright, with his head supported on the embowed hand that was laying on the pillow half-risen up, Albert stared for a long while at Emily’s asleep face.

„She’s so beautiful,” the man thought and he stretched his hand to take a strand of hair that was rebelliously falling on her face and disturbing this way the beautiful mirage of her face that was charming Albert.

The man’s hand touch made Emily move in her sleep and, as if moved by an inner call, still asleep, she moved closer to Albert’s chest and practically she stuck her naked breasts on his chest and he didn’t make to delay to embrace her, then to completely lay on the bed with her head supported on his chest and, covering her with the blanket, he kissed the top of her head.

„I can’t believe that I have you in my arms, Emily,” Albert whispered and smiled because he had at that moment everything, he dreamt about all his life and that he would have liked to never lose again because after Emily accepted to be his and they both lived a great passion, Albert had decided to fight even against death, if necessary, only not to lose her again.

Laying like that, with her sleeping on his chest, Albert’s glance unwillingly stopped on the small bottle of cyanide left on the toilet table and suddenly the light in his eyes vanished somewhere. „And yet… not the same thought she had, if she brought this bottle here,” he thought and sadly smiled. „What a disappointment,” his lips murmured and started to slowly shake because of displeasure.

He felt that she betrayed him, that she used him and he also felt being a nobody: he loved her like an idiot for his entire life and he’d been a faithful dog for her also for his whole life, he killed at her command without feeling pleasure and he served others'cause, but, in the end, to get to die like this - like a dog, by his beloved woman’s hand.

A painful sigh came out of his chest and his heart stopped beating for a few seconds. Then, the poor heart started again to madly beat in his chest, feeling as if the air stopped somewhere in the middle of his throat, suffocating him.

But yet, he didn’t rush to stand up, even if he wasn’t able to breathe because Albert simply wasn’t ready to give up on his pleasure or madness, call it as you wish, dear reader: his madness was to have that woman that he loved his entire life, there, in his arms, completely naked, uncovered by secrets, by feelings, without the mask she wore a life in front of him, hiding in her chest the same desire and passion he had for her.

Eventually, when he finally felt that he can’t anymore, Albert carefully left Emily on the pillow, slowly stood up, put on his trousers, and his shirt, and, approaching the window, he opened it.

The cold air of the night rushed to enter the room as if it was made from hundreds of savage horses, driven crazy by the sound of the whip, slashing on their black skin. But… the cold didn’t scare him but calmed him down. So, he deeply breathed in … that mad pleasure of the night… till he felt that his chest is filled with pleasant ice, to the brim, and only then did he feel again in peace with himself.

He tried to close the window and turn back in the bed, but his hands stopped at the edge of the window when he heard Emily’s voice: „leave the night to be the witness of the end of this great love, Albert. Maybe we’ll wash this way our soul of sins.”

Albert slowly bent his head, understanding that everything was about to end, but he said nothing: it was useless to fight against it. He stood like this, for seconds in a row, with thoughts somewhere in vain, as if they were stubborn to turn back in his brain. Then, when he had been finally capable to control himself, he turned toward Emily and saw her standing up, approaching him without dismay that it was a cold air there and, completely naked, she stuck her body of his.

The man hesitated if to hug her too or not. Still, the strong feelings he had, had been beyond his will, especially feeling her body slowly shaking next to him. So, he wrapped his arms around her body and sweetly kissed the top of her head.

They stood like this, for minutes in a row, looking like two in-love people that cannot split up even for a second, who want only happiness for the other person and who weren’t capable of ever hurting each other. But yet… betrayal is a decayed worm that doesn't die when the heart wants it. So … Albert mustered up his courage and asked her: „what’s next, Emily?! Will we get to the sanctuary on our feet or in a coffin?”

Emily said nothing instead: she only left his embracement, turned her back to him, and approached the bed, putting on the long dress. Then, she poured some liqueur into two glasses found on the dressing table, that she left in the same place after this, and … in front of Albert, she put cyanide in one of the glasses.

Albert sadly smiled, but he did nothing to impede her to do this. He only expected her to approach him, bringing the glasses with her.

Getting in front of him, Emily looked deeply into his eyes and murmured: „if you loved me, at least for a second in this life, you’ll end up with my pain, by yourself. If not… allow me then to wash my honor.”

„To wash your honor?” Albert asked her absently.

„Yes, for having slept with you, knowing about your betrayal and that you hadn’t been ever worthy of having my body,” she said, having no trace of remorse in her voice.

Her words didn’t amaze Albert at all: he always knew that Emily never considered him a worthy lover and even he knew that she came that night into his room and that she accepted to sleep with him only to show him that she still has the power in her hands, that she still controls everything, but… she was wrong because Albert wasn’t also stupid and he had already decided not to give up to her ever.

„Decide, Albert! It’s all I can do for you in these moments,” Emily murmured and she stretched both glasses toward him.

Albert looked in her eyes for seconds, trying to find in them at least a blink of kindness, at least a single sparkle of love for him, but those eyes were empty, as her soul was, and the blood that was flowing in her veins was so cold that she had the courage to ask him to choose alone the path onto which to walk toward the world to be: in her right hand, Emily had the glass with the cyanide, and in her left hand … the glass with the drink of life.

„You’ve been so wrong when you based only on my love,” Albert said eventually, barely heard. „Even if I was a faithful dog for my entire life, when he’s betrayed and hit by the master he loved, even the kindest dog can bite the hand of the one who wants his death,” and Albert took the glass from her left hand and he drank the liquor.

Emily’s hand started to slowly shake, lowering her glance and gnashing her teeth: yes, she’d been wrong. Not even Albert, the man who swore to love her for his entire life and who declared her his eternal faith, hadn't been capable to give up on his life for her.

„Dog!” she eventually murmured contemptuously and she drank the drink she had in her right hand, without even breathing.

Then, Albert took the glass from her hand, took her hand into his, and pulled her after him, toward the bed on which he forced her to sit down later. After this, he poured more alcohol into the glasses and … only in one of them put again cyanide from the small bottle, being him this time the one who drank the poisoned drink.

Emily winced, seeing what he does, but she didn’t stop him: it was bigger her pride than her love for him and she suffered from his betrayal - that’s why she looked for revenge. But yet, when Albert left the empty glass next to the one poured for her, Emily stood up and hugged him, whispering: „Is this the end, isn’t it?”

„It seems so,” Albert also whispered and powerfully hugged her to his chest, even if taking her with him in the cold world from where nobody ever turned back was hurting him more. But still, he was happy, knowing that he’d been the last man in Emily’s life and the one with whom she spent her last night on Earth.

What Albert didn’t know and what Emily decided not to tell him even before their death, was that he’d been the only man with whom she spent willingly her night, the only man with whom she felt pleasure because each time she entered someone’s bed, it had been for satisfying Christine Bircham or Luis Chesterman’s ambitions and she always did what she did mechanically, laying on the strange bed as if she was a lifeless doll and the same, with no remorse, she was leaving the stranger’s bed the next morning - showing him no love, no desire to turn back and no respect for the one who had been her lover for a night. Then, she was leaving the stranger’s house too, entering the carriage next to which was awaiting Albert for her, the man she loved, in her way, even if she wasn’t looking at him on such mornings because she knew that the carriage that was taking her shame away was just a cold cage in which she was a captive and a lonely bird, and he was her jailer.

Now instead, in Albert’s arms, she feels warmth, for the first time, even if the slight shaking of life that was leaving her body was madly flowing through her veins. And … also for the first time, Emily Davis happily smiled, closed her eyes and she fell prey to the sweet kiss of death.

She’d been the first one in dying… into the arms of the man that really loved her and who chose to be the guilty one for her death, ending up this way with her eternal pain.

With the last remaining power, Albert took her into his arms, laid her on the bed, and also laid next to her, powerfully hugging her to his chest while bitter tears were falling on his cheeks because he would have liked to end up with their love story differently and he dreamt about a happy end, for all his life, but … „maybe in another life!” Albert murmured and he also closed his eyes, forever.