The Memoirs of a Forgotten Man

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

The city still showed signs of life. Some parts of the city always did. It was a different type of life to that which existed in the daylight. Subdued, wary, suspicious – in a way these describe the feelings I observe in others when I am travelling the streets at night. It was no different tonight.

I made my way to the scene of the crime as quickly as I could. There should be an officer or two already there securing the site. Forensics would be on the way. But I would be the investigator. It would be my job to make sense of the scene. To tie seemingly unconnected pieces together. To determine what occurred before this event. What lead to this crime taking place. The hidden details. The unrevealed facts. The itch that lay just beneath the surface of what my five senses could actually perceive. The obvious and the logical – often these could be a distraction. But only time would tell.

The scene of the crime lay in a more desolate part of the city. “Junkies, lowlifes, and whores” is how my last partner referred to the people around here. That was before the Department brought him up on corruption charges. “Seems junkies, lowlifes and whores exist in many places” - these were my final words to him. Now I work alone. Mostly my own choice. I actually prefer it this way. But I think they'd be hard pressed to find me a new partner. Seems I broke the code. Whilst I never ratted on my partner, I never defended him either. I didn't take one for the team. That was something that I was meant to do. But from where I see things he got what he deserved. It's simply not my problem. I signed up to make a difference out there, in the city, in other people's lives. Hopefully a positive difference. It wasn't to defend drug dealing and murderous fellow cops.

The building was an old tenement style, one of many lining the street. Whilst they were clearly showing signs of age, structurally there was nothing wrong with these buildings. I think it is the area itself that emptied these dwellings out over the years. No one wants to live here. It is not the safest place to live. Which makes me wonder what a child is doing here? Were they dumped here? Were people squatting in this building?

I pulled the car up to the curb outside the building and proceeded to the entrance. There was an officer standing guard at the door. I showed him my badge as I approached.

“It's up on the top floor,” he told me without delay. I looked up briefly. There were three floors.

“Thanks. Who's up there now?”

“My partner is securing the apartment. The building appears to be empty.”

Inside the building a grand, old but solid staircase ascended through the central collumn. There appeared to be several doors leading off from each level. All empty it appears. That would need to be verified later, but there doesn't appear to be any signs of life coming from them. I reached the third floor and made my way to the apartment. The second officer stopped what he was doing and approached me.

“What have we got?” I asked him.

“A young male, age uncertain – possibly two years old – deceased. In the back room.”

I took a few steps into the first room and looked around. A musty smell greeted me, as did a sense of dirt and grime. This place hasn't been loved in some time. This was no home. No place to put down roots. Would squatters even bother? I suppose they would, if it provided a roof over their head. The room was empty. There was no furniture, not even broken or left behind tokens of a previous occupant. It felt more than empty. It felt sterile. Stale and lifeless. It wasn't just that life had left this place, but like it had been removed. Yes there was the physical signs of life – dirt, grime, damp – if you can call that life. But this went further, like a vortex had sucked the desire for life out of this place. It was hard to explain. I know I had felt it at times in the past, but never really been able to put my finger on it. Whatever it was, it felt cold, and sinister.

But that was all my detective's sixth sense at work. Nothing concrete. Certainly nothing I could put into my report. Not if I wanted to be taken seriously. And especially if I wanted to keep my job. But I still took note of these things. I had found them to be an accurate guide in these matters. Like I said earlier – the darkness sees all, and sometimes will reveal what she knows. I believe that intuitive sense I get is one of the communication channels. The gut instinct, in a way.

I stood in the middle of the room, taking in everything that I could, before turning back to the other officer. I gave him a look, gentle but firm, instructing him to lead the way. He was here first, in a way this is still his territory. Best we do a formal handover, so to speak.

He lead me to the back room, a room not too dissimilar to the first one I was in. Empty, stale, dark and damp. Except this one wasn't completely empty. This room had the lifeless body of a child left in the centre of it. Exactly in the centre. Strategically placed – like an icon, looking like a young Christ-like figure, with his arms stretched out from his sides. No this child was not dumped. He was placed here, deliberately.

“Who found the body?” I asked.

“It was an anonymous tip off,” he replied. Of course it was. There was no one around here to stumble upon this scene. That's why they chose this building. Same person who dumped this child also called it in. No doubt about it. They wanted him to be found. But why? And why this particular placement of the body? What is the significance of it?

I scanned the room as best I could, whilst still standing close to the entrance. I had no desire to disturb any unseen evidence. There appeared to be no blood anywhere. No signs of struggle. Which just confirms that this child's body was brought here, from elsewhere. And that could be anywhere.

There was something about the placement of the child. Something about the way he lay there looking like a crucified figure. I continued to observe, transfixed by the scene. And it hit me, like waves of nausea, and an emotional and mental bombardment from within. From some deep dark depths within my own psyche. Like an overwhelming sense of deja-vu. I don't know if that's exactly what it was, if that's the correct name for what I was feeling. But it just felt like a long lost memory shot itself at me with such force and velocity. I felt it, overwhelmingly so. But I couldn't retain it. It teased me with its fleeting presence. Hung around long enough for me to know it had been here, but grasp after it as much as I did, I just could not locate what it was that I had observed.

“Are you okay?” the second officer asked me. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

I paused as I considered what I was feeling. It was enough to make my legs unstable, and my body come out in a cold sweat. Several deep breaths and a moment to refocus.

“Have you ever had a sense of deja-vu?” I asked him, genuinely curious if he had any idea what I felt.

“Sure, kind of like something has happened before. I've felt that. Gives you goose bumps.”

“Yeh that's right,” I replied.

“Is that what you're feeling?”

“Yes, just now, looking at this body. At the placement of the child. I'm not really sure, but something here set it off.”

“You should pay attention to that feeling. Take note of it. It's trying to tell you something. That's what I think, anyway.” I nodded at him in agreement, but I never expected to hear these words from another police officer. Had he really thought through his words or just blurted them out? He spoke them calmly and without concern for how I would perceive them. But he was right. I should take note of this. There was something here that relates to the past in some way. Probably in a big way.

The key question was whose past? If it was my past then what does this child have to do with me?

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This fiction is my own work, written for Steemit
Image Credit: Unsplash.com

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Bad Trip	My Sister's Keeper
Chapter One	Chapter One & Two
Chapter Two	Chapter Three & Four
Chapter Three	Chapter Five & Six
Chapter Four	Chapter Seven
Chapter Five	Chapter Eight
Chapter Six	Chapter Nine
Chapter Seven	Chapter Ten
Chapter Eight	Chapter Eleven
Chapter Nine	Chapter Twelve
Chapter Ten	Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Eleven	Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Twelve	Chapter Fifteen
Short Fiction	Chapter Sixteen & Seventeen
Bang Bang You're Dead	Chapter Eighteen
Where Did the Time Go?	Chapter Nineteen
Run From the Screams	Chapter Twenty
Saved By the Rain	Chapter Twenty One & Twenty Two
I Think I've Remembered This Before	Chapter Twenty Three & Twenty Four
A Mother's Love	Chapter Twenty Five
	Chapter Twenty Six
	Chapter Twenty Seven & Twenty Eight
	Chapter Twenty Nine & Thirty
	Chapter Twenty Thirty One
	Chapter Twenty Thirty Two