The Zima Confession - страница 5

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The shadows of two men are walking together but on separate paths. Where is this place? We are floating in space. The brightness is too bright, the darkness too dark.

Mist begins to obscure the blinding brightness. Cloud-like wisps lightly tumble upon themselves, thickening into shadow, making everything incomprehensible. Slowly, it begins to rotate, like a dying galaxy.

Then nothingness.

Yet there is a sense of something new; something approaching.

Hidden by shadow, something disturbing is near and getting nearer. Vermiform, it oozes from the darkness. A colossus; tattoos on its long, limbless body glisten like rubies, emeralds, sapphires and countless other multicoloured jewels as it emerges. It moves by undulating lazily, pushing before it a head in the shape of a blunted lozenge. It hesitates, then goes forward again, zigzagging from shadow into ever brighter light, revealing shimmering fractals glittering on its surface. It is magnificent! A fallen angel. A Lucifer.

Its monster head, an expressionless mask, moves from side to side, seeking prey. Its metal eyes hunt.

Suddenly the head splits wide open, transforming into a gaping pink mouth, exposing fangs like curved needles. Richard woke up. He was bathed in sweat.

It was that dream again. Why did he keep having nightmares about a damned snake?

Andy Mitchell was dead. The email said so.

“How can they be telling me this by email? It must be a hoax – a spoof email perhaps?”

Having just awoken from the nightmare about the snake, everything still felt unreal to Richard, so he found it hard to take in. A fake email from HR would mean there was a breach in the firewall. But a serious breach in security for an email like this wasn’t at all likely. The message was real. Andy Mitchell was dead. Richard reread it a dozen times wondering what could’ve happened to his boss. A heart attack? Car accident? The email didn’t say.

He remembered the last time he saw him. It was while he had been staying in the Grand Sokos Hotel for a project. Mitchell had suddenly turned up in Helsinki and rang his room at quarter to midnight. It was summer, so it was still broad daylight. He had got dressed again, gone down to the lounge bar to meet Mitchell and they had drunk until three a.m. By then they must’ve been as pissed as newts. His recollection of what had happened was very hazy. To start with, the conversation had been normal enough. Mitchell had talked enthusiastically about music and playing bass for some band in his youth. But then he turned a bit odd. He became more and more morose. Suddenly it all came out as anger. He ranted for a while about what a bitch his wife was. He mentioned he was in serious debt.

He talked about being psychic, quite seriously. Then, bizarrely, he produced a pack of cards. He wanted to absolutely prove that he was psychic for some reason. Were they Tarot cards? Richard seemed to remember they were cards with letters on them… and didn’t Mitchell start talking about politics or something at the same time? It was as though he was trying to prove Richard wrong every time he asked a question. Questions that had something to do with…? Richard couldn’t remember. They were probably drinking that goddamned Salmiakki Koskenkorva – liquorice vodka. That would account for it. It had got quite weird and rather irritating, and the whole political thing had got really annoying in the end. Mitchell kept telling him to remember the facts, and repeatedly saying, “You need to wake up,” just repeatedly saying “You need to wake up now,” to whatever point he made. Well, they were both completely drunk. The standard of debate couldn’t have been very high. It was probably a slur of barely intelligible babble.