Masks

Chapter V: The Man with the Twisted Face

“I know what you mean,” replied Ashley. "So did I, really: that’s why I followed him. I just assumed that the rest would happen organically.”

“You were planning to apprehend him? You?” he half-smiled, in a way Ashley thought was a little too patronising. Nobody could half-smile like Harvey.

“I don’t know. I really don’t.” An air of despondency crept into her voice. “I guess I just wanted to do something, to contribute something… for once in my life.”

Harvey, knowing full well that she’d done the same for him countless times, took pity on her. “You might still have,” he pointed out. “The police could find something. Do you still think he was connected to the murder?”

“I’m less sure, now.” It was true: in the cold light of day, her instincts didn’t seem nearly as reliable. When she came to explain it to someone else, too, she realised her assumptions for what they were. She’d been rash. “You don’t have any ideas about that, do you?”

“Not at all,” Harvey shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Neither. It just doesn’t make sense, I mean: this was controlled, personal. How does a stripper have enemies?”

“Why don’t you ask her, Amazing Persephone – or was what I read about the séance a lie?” Back to jokes, then.

“Hilarious. No, of course I can’t speak to the dead.”

“Well, you’re speaking to me.”

“You’re not dead!” she exclaimed.

“Half-dead.”

“In that case, you should be able to talk to her.”

“I wish I could – did you see that body?”

Ashley sighed. This was typical Harvey.

“Putting the ‘romance’ back into necromancy, I see.”

It was Gutter humour to talk about a dead body like that, of course. Working here instilled a profound sense of apathy that was hard to shake off. It was contagious, too. The more you spent around people like Harvey, who had nothing left to care for, the more you start to empathise. Months after losing most of his left side, Harvey was rumoured to have joked that he “felt all right”. Nothing was out of bounds.

Of course, many of the newer performers weren’t yet immunised, and would be shocked to hear such comments. Ashley, though, was a veteran. 

One of the newcomers was sitting a few tables down from them, but she didn’t seem to mind. Ashley didn’t make a habit of getting to know these youngsters: partly because they came and left so frequently, partly because of the gulf in personality. This girl, however, she recognised: it was Cinda, the singer from the day before. Ashley hadn’t expected to be at work for a few days, because she’d seemed fairly shaken-up by her ordeal, but there was no evidence of that now. She was humming, and was happily engrossed in a local newspaper.

The front page, held up for all to see, read “One Bird, Two Stoners.” More importantly, it proudly displayed a picture of Ashley. It had been dark, and the photograph was poor quality (probably taken on somebody’s mobile) so the mask succeeded in hiding her identity. Cinda, who was sitting with a clear view of the real thing, hadn’t made the connection.

On the other hand, Ashley had. All of a sudden, she was beginning to panic. This had spiralled beyond her control.

Before she could stop herself, she’d invited Cinda to join them.