Ann Clifford

Genre: supernatural conspiracy thriller (unpublished)

Framed for murder, privileged Caleb Stone is forced to confront a dark conspiracy orchestrated by his powerful uncle/guardian.  As he journeys to unearth the truth about his parents’ death, he is guided by a mysterious supernatural entity named Jeg. Caleb must navigate a world of violence and betrayal, risking everything for the truth and a love he never expected, all while fighting for his own soul.

OVERLAP a novel by AMC

Where the natural and the supernatural entwine

Paint stripper is designed

to take things back to the original –

but what if the original

is a mystery

revealing a previously camouflaged,

unrecognised form?

What then does the mind

hold on to?

CHAPTER ONE

Under extreme and unprecedented pressure, Caleb played dead.  His features revealed nothing, and he became preternaturally calm.

He stood alone in a room within a police station. He had always been alone, but now, even though positioned in front of three police officers, he had never felt more isolated.

The room was clean, so newly painted the chemical in the paint travelled through his nostrils, hit the back of his throat and he coughed lightly. A Formica-covered table lay empty, in front of which stood two officers, each pulling transparent rubber gloves onto their hands. Caleb watched them, as still as a sphinx.

The perfectly presented man who stood in front of the only door, feet planted, his teeth glistening in competition with the buttons that adorned his uniform, was Detective Hanson.  This man had been after the prisoner since he had met him. Why?

‘Are you allowed to do this?’ asked Caleb, his voice quiet, enquiring, as if he wanted directions to the nearest hotel. He understood the impression he gave — for which he made no apology — was of a privileged, top of the tree, white man. Wanting was a disease carried by most, including him.  However, the black constable who told him to remove his clothes spoke with respect and a hint of compassion.

‘Please remove your clothes, sir.’ His voice was sonorous, reverberating like a monastic bell as he repeated his command. ‘Please hand them to me,’ continued Deep Voice. ‘My colleague will search them thoroughly and then place them on the table behind us.’

Hanson stood there, immobile, a carrion crow, watching the reduction and humiliation of the man in front of him, as piece by piece, he came apart, allowing a scavenging of human flesh.

Caleb pulled out his hair tie and gathered his dreadlocks to the back of his head. He removed his Zilli jacket, unbuttoned his Tom Ford shirt, and tossed them to the constable, making sure every brand was obvious. The other constable was meticulous in his examination of each item. Caleb stopped and waited as the smell of his classic aftershave fingered itself around the room. Leaving the proceedings in his mind, he closed his eyes and imagined he stood in the bathroom of his recently acquired riverside flat – naked, warm, alone, safe.

The officer looked at Hanson, who nodded.  ‘Everything,’ repeated the officer.

He bent and removed his Common Projects perfect white sneakers. The third officer collected them, removed the laces, and placed the shoes side by side on the table. Then he stepped back, averting his eyes as Caleb pulled off his socks and unzipped his classic Levis.  Despite the cold that now embraced him, Caleb’s mouth hardened into a line in his determination not to shiver.

How many officers does it take to observe a man undress?  Caleb smiled suddenly at the thought. Hanson didn’t miss it and moved in for the kill.

The black officer finished retrieving and handing over the items.  He looked at the detective, who nodded.  The officer held out his hand, his fingers gesturing that Caleb should give him something else. He dropped his boxer shorts.  The two officers remained impassive, their eyes looking straight ahead. Caleb’s eyes were unseeing, refusing to look at Hanson, imagining a sneering face alongside a sense of triumph.

‘Do the physical,’ Hanson ordered the officer.

‘Sir…?’ questioned the officer.

‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘No orifice unexplored!’

Caleb retreated into his mind.

… Caleb kept running, following behind PJ in the distance, his parkour buddy.  His friend turned and smiled at him. He picked up speed, so they ran in tandem. A sense of calm infused him.

As the officer stood directly in front of Caleb, he opened his eyes; the man smelt lightly of… cloves, really, cloves? He then identified a small pimple on the side of his dark-skinned nose. Perhaps he’d scratched it because the new head sported a minutia of blood. His breath smelt of mint – the man was behaving as a human being, considerate of another human being.

Whilst Caleb’s thoughts tumbled, obediently he opened his mouth wide, allowing an intimate exploration with a tool prodding everywhere.

‘Spread the legs.’

Caleb disappeared inside himself again, closing his eyes. …

He took a run at the wall. He must generate enough speed to hit the wall and run up it enough to elevate himself to grasp the top with his hands. 

‘Spread ‘em. Now bend over.’ A hand extended over his back. ‘Lower’.

Plastic fingers explored his butt cheeks as they widened them and, when he sensed his tormentor had bent to view, he farted as effectively as possible. Disgusted, the man stumbled. A trickle of disappointment at himself registered in Caleb. The officer had not deserved that, but he could not allow himself to remain completely powerless.

‘Get dressed!’ the officer barked.

Hanson wanted more.  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Finish it.’

He was on top of the brick wall and, despite its rough edges digging into his hands, pulled himself over the top to roll off down the other side.

The other officer lifted Caleb’s balls.

‘Roll back your foreskin,’ he said.

Caleb whacked his leg as he rolled off the wall.

His eyes burst open, angry and questioning, and Caleb stared at him.  Was he serious he thought? What could be hidden under a foreskin?

As he took his penis in his hand and followed instructions, he closed his eyes again.

He stood ready to jump, but he had hurt himself and his knee stung. He miscalculated the leap and fell, landing painfully on the ground.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself on the room floor, a heap of shamed flesh. Hanson stared into Caleb’s eyes as he knelt before his prey.

‘Why did you kill him, Caleb?’ he whispered.

‘What lovely brown eyes you have,’ Caleb whispered back. ‘I want a solicitor.’

Hanson exited; the door slamming shut.

Grabbing an arm each, the officers lifted their man to his feet and stood him in front of the table.

‘Get dressed.’

He obeyed as best he could, but his strength appeared to have left him. He grasped each garment and reapplied them slowly, trying not to evidence his shaking hands.

The face of a nine-year-old boy pieced together in his mind. It had been a long time since he had experienced such helplessness and vulnerability.  Is life circular he wondered? How often do we return to the beginning?

‘Can I leave?’

‘No son, we’re taking you to a cell for the night.’ His voice sounded almost kind.

They secured handcuffs on his wrists and then half-carried Caleb out into the corridor. Of course, he remembered – he was in custody; photographed, fingerprinted, numbered, viewed with relish by Hanson. They walked through the corridor of the custody suite and stopped outside a steel door, opened it, pushed him inside, twisted him around, then removed the handcuffs.

‘They’ll bring you something to eat and drink,’ said ‘Deep Voice.’ He pulled the door shut, and the lock turned.

Caleb leant forward and rested his head on the door, noting the faint odour of piss and bleach, as the metal door chilled his head, and stillness shrouded his body. He raised his head to his reflection in the pristine, buffed metal door. It showed a hollowed-out shadow of a man and nothing of the tall, confident, privileged human being he thought he knew.

He swivelled, sank to the floor, crossed his legs, and buried his head in his hands.  He thought himself numb, but, unaccountably, a tear leaked over his face. Then another, and another. From deep inside him, a noise rose, trickling up and out of his mouth.

He was back on the beach, waiting, a terrified ten-year-old so sure they would return if he waited long enough.

His body now appeared to be in a kind of involuntary motion, rhythmically moving backwards and forwards. From the deepest part of him, an extraordinary, obscure, high-pitched sound unfurled within him and from what began as a strange moan grew in complexity. His hands pulled hard at his dreadlocks. He told himself he needed pain — the pain from the scalp, anything to ease the mysterious storm erupting inside him.

‘No, my darling boy, no, don’t hurt yourself. Hush now.’

Whose voice was that? What unstoppable sound emanated from him?  He closed his eyes, suddenly hearing other sounds, musical notes, chords floating around him, above him, sublime musical tones rising beyond the surrounding walls.  He didn’t want the improvisation to stop as it wrapped itself around his heart, underpinning and holding it, working its way through the pain, through his airless lungs and strung-tight chest, up into his unquiet mind.

When he opened his eyes, he was still on the floor, back to the door, his head in the crook of his arm, his legs bent together.

‘Hello Caleb,’ said a voice.

He closed his eyes again, thinking he heard a far-distant memory.

‘Hello’ repeated the voice.

He raised himself slightly to look around the cell, noting the toilet, fixed behind a low-slung wall, with a wide, matching blue horizontal stripe snaking around the room. Shocked, he registered a man sitting cross-legged perched on the thin blue plastic mattress lining one end of the raised bed-length plinth, sitting on a pillow.  He wore a crumpled white T-shirt, loose khaki cargo pants, and his feet bare. How old? Maybe ten years older than him, or more?

Their eyes met, and neither looked away. Caleb saw fine, strong dark eyes set within an extraordinarily open face. He nodded and lowered his head.

‘How do…?’ Caleb began.

Footsteps, an unlocking, the cell door pushing against his back.

‘Move away from the door,’ commanded the voice.  Caleb, using his hands against the wall to climb up, stood and stepped into the cell.   The officer placed a tray through the partially open door, then slammed it shut.

‘Eat,’ said his companion, ‘you’re hungry.’ His voice was gentle, concerned, authoritative, almost as if a parent were talking to a wayward child.

Caleb picked up the tray, sat at the far end of the mattress, placed the tray beside him and ate the indifferent pasty, observing his companion. When he’d finished the pie, he took a sip of the now-tepid tea, then with disgust returned it to the tray.

With a sigh, Caleb leant his head back on the wall. Who was his companion? Homeless? Alcoholic? Violent? His he turned his head to meet intense eyes, that looked at him with intelligence and understanding.

‘How do you know my name?’ asked Caleb.

‘What do you want?’ asked the man.

Caleb remained silent. It was a ridiculous question.

The man’s soft voice continued, ‘What do you want?’

‘Why? What could you do? It’s ridiculous.’

‘What do you want?’

He smiled at Caleb.

‘I want to get out of here,’ said Caleb.

‘That will happen tomorrow. My question is bigger than that.’

The question set off a fire alarm in Caleb’s head. There was so much to want, which included her, but for him, right now, the question was unanswerable.

‘It doesn’t matter what I want; there’s nothing to be done.’ He snapped.

‘What’s your name, anyway?’

‘Jeg.’

‘They say I killed a man,’ Caleb blurted.

‘Did you?’ asked Jeg.

Caleb heard footsteps, then a key in the lock, the door swinging open, and an officer standing outside

‘Stay away from the door,’ he barked. ‘Your tray, sir.’

Caleb handed it to the officer. ‘What about my cellmate? He didn’t get a tray?’

‘What cellmate?’ said the officer.

‘Him,’ he said and turned, but there was no one there. He was alone.

The man snorted, ‘Get some sleep,’ and slammed the door shut.

Caleb stared at the empty mattress. What just happened? Had the trauma so disoriented him he was hallucinating?

He looked at his watch – 2.30am.  Resignedly, he took hold of the single blanket, wrapped it around himself and lay sideways on the mattress with his head on the now empty pillow.  The next time he looked at his watch, it shocked him – the time was 6am. He had slept.

Caleb sat up cross-legged on the mattress and, placing the single blanket around his shoulders, tried to remember the previous conversations, but his thoughts were slippery as foxes able to run amok without restraint. He remembered the appalling fact that they could hold him for up to fourteen days.

He allowed his mind to drift back to his hallucinatory cellmate. Was he real?  The cell he inhabited was undeniable, the food concrete. He tried to remember the strange early hours of the night before, surprised he had slept as if a child, woken only by the strident morning illumination within his cell.

Unnerved, he swept the space with his eyes again and relaxed. There was no one in his cell; he was certain. He closed his eyes and visualised the person. It was the feet, the bare feet, feet like any other feet, except they looked somewhat familiar.

Without warning, he found himself back in Snettisham, at his grandmother’s beach house that overlooked the bay. He had woken to the perfect day — blue skies, soft wind, the sun, an emerging muse, balancing on top of the horizon, the swell a beckoning temptress causing a longing to rise within him, which he ignored. He slipped on his runners, put his dreads in a band, and slithered out into the dawn to run on the pebbles alongside the shore. At nine years old, he cherished the independence of running on the beach alone, following a promise made to his dad never to swim alone in the sea.

The dawn light eked out its promise, rising to his left, and as he looked ahead, a huge shape manifested on the beach with lots of movement around it.   As he approached, the movement reorganised itself into people carrying buckets running backwards and forwards to the sea, filling them with seawater, and returning to the shape. 

‘What’s happened?’ he asked a man who moved towards him.

‘It’s a beached whale.  Many people are trying to keep it wet in case it can refloat itself when the tide comes in.’

‘What happens if it doesn’t float?’

‘If it doesn’t float, it can’t right itself. Its blowhole will fill with water, it won’t be able to take in oxygen and it will die.’

‘That’s sad.’

‘Yes, but we all end—even you one day.’

‘Mum says there’s a right time for everything.’

‘She’s right. Caleb, things will be very hard, but you won’t be alone.’

With fresh eyes, Caleb watched the man walk away along the pebbled shore, noticing for the first time he was barefoot. Most people don’t walk on a pebbled beach without shoes. Where were his? Then the figure looked back at Caleb, and his dark eyes gazed into his.

‘Go and help, son.’

In that moment something winded Caleb; he remembered that the man with the bare feet knew his name.

The whale had died with Caleb and his dad standing as sentinels, but he hadn’t cried – not then.

The crying started the following day.

Awe & Wonder published by Instant Apostle (April 2021) accompanying book to Chaiya Art Awards Exhibition at Gallery@Oxo and The Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf April 2023

God is … published by Instant Apostle (May 2021) accompanying book to Chaiya Art Awards Exhibition  at Gallery@Oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf May 2021

Where is God in our 21st Century World published by Instant Apostle (September 2018) available at Exhibition of same name Gallery@Oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf April 2018

Time to Live – The Beginner’s Guide to Saying Goodbye published Instant Apostle (Sept 15, 2017)

Ealing Passion 2015, 2016 – writer and director

Shaking Dreamland feature film script produced by Eagle Films Ltd distributed by LifeSize Entertainment 2007

Let’s Do Lunch short, script produced Eagle Films 2002

The Letter play produced First Floor Theatre at Westminster Theatre Season, West End 1 & 2 1988, 1989

Split play produced Straight Talk Theatre 1986-1988