The Devil's Photographer Read online

  "I need my camera," I say. This is the first time I've ever been separated from that camera since I bought it several years ago, and I'm terrified by the thought that I might lose it forever.

  "You'll get it back first thing in the morning," he replies, putting the mirror back on the table. "I promise".

  "I need it," I say again, forcing myself to stay calm. This is so irrational; why am I so totally panicked by the fact that my camera is back at the church? A normal person wouldn't be so concerned.

  "I'll go and get it as soon as the sun comes up," he reassures me.

  I take a deep breath. "You carried me back here?" I ask after a moment.

  "I sure did". He smiles. "I can tell you one thing, Kate. A man carrying an unconscious woman through the streets of Manhattan is a very conspicuous sight. Frankly, I think I was very lucky I didn't get stopped by any cops. I'm not quite sure how I would have explained things if that had happened".

  I stare at him for a moment. "Thank you," I reply eventually. I guess this is better than still being unconscious in that cold church, waiting to be found in the morning by a group of workmen.

  "It was nothing".

  "Did you see anything unusual when you came into the church?" I ask. "Like... Did you have a torch with you, or something?"

  "I have a torch app on my phone," he replies. "But no, I didn't see anything. Why? What do you think I should have seen?"

  "Nothing," I say, still not certain whether or not it's a good idea to start telling him about the fact that I've seen Amin Bell. My mind is spinning, and I have no idea what I should do or say. "I don't know. I guess I managed to spook myself. For a moment back there, I thought there was someone else in the church, but it was probably just a trick of the light. I was using the flash on my camera; I think I just startled myself".

  "I didn't see anyone," he replies, "but I suppose it's possible. The city's full of vagrants. Maybe one of them thought he could bed down for the night".

  "Maybe. I just..." Thinking back to Amin Bell's face, staring at me in the light of the flash, I feel a cold shiver run through my body. I've seen him in photos, of course, but never with my naked eye. This was a whole new type of experience, and not one that I ever want to experience again. One thing's certain, though: I didn't imagine it. I didn't imagine any of it. I know what I saw. If that makes me sound crazy, so be it.

  "Are you okay?" Dagwood asks. "You seem pretty dazed".

  "I guess it was just the bump on the head," I tell him. "To be honest, I feel kind of weird. I think I should probably go home and get some rest".

  "Do you have someone at home to look after you?"

  "I'll be fine," I say.

  "So you don't have anyone?"

  "I'll be fine," I say again.

  "You might have concussion," he continues, "which means you might not be fine. There's no way you can be alone for the next twelve hours. You either stay here, or you go and get checked out. I'm not gonna let you just wander out of here with a possible head injury".

  I stare at him for a moment. I want to argue, but I know he's right. Still, I could go and spend the rest of the night with Bella; even if I need someone to keep an eye on me, there's no reason why that someone has to be John Dagwood. It's as if he's slowly creeping deeper and deeper into my life, making it harder for me to avoid his attention. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I'm filled with a determination to get away. After all, he's already admitted that he followed me out of his apartment, which makes me wonder whether his interest in me is becoming a little too keen.

  "You're looking at me like I'm some kind of monster," he says after a moment. "I'm just trying to help out. I thought you seemed a little freaked out when you left here, so I came after you. If that makes me seem like some kind of freak, then I guess I can't argue, but given the circumstances, I'm kind of glad I did what I did".

  "I know," I reply, "but I really don't want to cause you any problems. I can go and stay the night with a friend". Once again, I try to get up from the sofa; once again, however, I start to feel light-headed and Dagwood has to help me back down.

  "Too late," he says. "You've already spent the night here, more or less. It's almost 5am. And I'm free today, so I can keep an eye on you. As long as you're okay by early evening, I'll be totally happy to pack you off home in a taxi and you never have to see me again. Not if you'd rather just forget this whole thing. I won't call, I won't email, I won't even leave little notes in the books you're reading. Deal?"

  I open my mouth to argue with him, but finally I realize that this might be the best way to handle things. After all, I'm not sure how I'd explain these events to Bella, so it's probably easier to just stick the course with Dagwood and then go home as soon as he's convinced that I'm better. After all, once I head off in that taxi, I don't ever have to see him again. This whole messy incident can be wrapped up in a neat, non-leaking ball and consigned to history.

  "Deal," I say finally. "But I need you to do me one favor. Can you get my camera back? I have some photos on there than I really need to develop. It's very important that you go back to St. Abraham's and get my stuff back".

  "Photos of Amin Bell?"

  I stare at him. How much does he know?

  "We can talk about it later," he continues, "but I can see from the look in your eyes that I'm onto something". He stares at me for a moment. "I'm not dumb, Kate. There's no way you tracked down his book simply because you were curious. I'm gonna make sure you're okay, and then, hopefully, you'll tell me the truth about your interest in Bell. If I'm right, you've experienced something very similar to the photo I have on my wall. You've seen him, haven't you?"

  I pause for a moment. "I'm tired," I say eventually. "Do you mind if I get some sleep?"

  "Sure". Standing up, he walks over to the door before glancing back at me. "I'd offer you my bed, but I'm afraid it's pretty messy in there. You're better off on the sofa. I'll head down to the church first thing in the morning and get your camera, so don't worry about any of that. I'll think of some excuse to explain things to the guys who are working there. After that, though, I'd really like to talk to you about Bell. Whatever's going on, I think it's something that's starting to affect us both". He reaches over to the light switch. "On or off?"

  "Off," I say.

  Once he's gone and I'm alone in the dark, I turn and stare at the window. Outside, the city is starting to emerge from the long, dark night, and I can already hear voices in the street. I feel as if I crossed some kind of threshold tonight; Amin Bell went from being a personal project to being someone who exists on a much broader canvas. I should have realized much sooner that he was the guy in the photos, but I guess I was so focused on the other aspects of my work, I didn't see something that was blindingly obvious. Now I have to deal with some new facts about the situation: for one thing, he appeared outside the bounds of a photograph for the first time; for another, it's clear that I'm not the only person who's managed to capture his image. If Dagwood has seen him, that means there are plenty of other people who might also have witnessed his form. Something that started out as a small, private mystery is threatening to grow and grow until it becomes something much bigger. It's not mine anymore, and it's pretty clear that I'm not crazy: whatever's happening with Amin Bell and those photos, it's real.

  After a while, I try to get some sleep, but there's a noise in the room that keeps me awake. It's as if something is moving nearby; not walking or breathing, but brushing against something else. I try to ignore my concern, but eventually I sit up and look across the dark room. Although there's a part of me that expects to see Amin Bell once again, I quickly remind myself to stay calm. Getting up from the sofa, I take a moment to steady myself before walking across the room until I find a small glass tank on the floor, partly hidden by a large chair. Kneeling down, I look into the tank and it takes me a moment before I realize what I'm looking at: slowly slithering around behind the glass, there are a handful of small, thin black snakes. One of them lifts its head
to explore the lid, which thankfully is firmly in place. Taking a deep breath, I watch as the snake moves back down to the bottom of the tank and rejoins the others. Looking over at the bookshelves, I see the small object that Dagwood told me was used to deliver snake bites directly to a human heart. Suddenly I can't help but wonder whether his interest in old medical techniques is entirely theoretical.

  Part Three

  The Doctor

  Today

  "So, do you make a habit of ignoring people who damn-near save your life?"

  Turning to look over at the door, I see a strikingly handsome man smiling at me. He looks familiar but, through my drug-induced haze, I'm finding it hard to work out where I've seen him before. I blink a couple of times, hoping to get rid of the fog in my mind, but it's no use. I think I was just asleep, dreaming about my childhood again, about my parents, but...

  I blink a couple of times.

  "Um..." I say after a moment. "I, um..."

  "The nurse told me you might be a little dizzy," he continues, stepping into the room and holding up an over-the-top bunch of bright flowers. "As soon as I bought these," he adds," I realized they were probably a mistake. Of course, by that point, I was walking toward the elevator, and I figured it'd look weird if I just ditched the damn things in a trashcan, so..." He sets the flowers down on the little table by my bed. "I'm not even sure if you're a flowers kind of woman, anyway. I guess it was kind of a thoughtless gift, really, although I've put a lot of thought into the apology, so maybe that counts for something."

  "They're nice," I reply, playing for time while I desperately try to remember who this guy is.

  "John Dagwood," he says suddenly, as if he can read my mind. "It's been a while, Kate. I was thinking that maybe you..." He pauses, before smiling nervously. "Well, I don't know what I was thinking, but six months after I last saw you, you're still kinda on my mind, so I decided to take that as a sign. I figured I'd look you up and see how you're doing, and the trail led here. But if you don't want me bugging you -"

  "No," I say quickly, trying to sit up before feeling a sharp pain in my diaphragm. I ease myself back down into the bed, taking a series of short, sharp breaths as I wait for the pain to go away. It's like there are daggers spinning through my body. "I'm sorry," I continue once I've got my breath back. "I've just been a little busy. Things kind of got on top of me."

  "So I see," he replies. "Mind if I take a seat?"

  "Go ahead," I say, as the pain dips down to an acceptable level. I still don't remember very much about this Dagwood guy, but flashes are starting to come back to me. "If you want a drink," I continue, as he sits in the chair next to my hospital bed, "I'm sure one of the nurses can -"

  "It's fine," he replies, interrupting me. "I don't need anything." He pauses for a moment, clearly a little nervous. "So I spoke to one of the doctors," he continues awkwardly, "and obviously she wouldn't give me very much information about -"

  "I'm dying," I tell him, preferring to get to the heart of the matter. "I've probably got three, maybe four months left at most. The cancer came back. Again. I had to drop everything I was doing and take some pretty intensive treatment. I haven't left this place in..." I pause as I realize that I'm giving him way too much information. The truth is, I barely even remember this guy at all. "So there we are," I continue. "Things are pretty bad here. I'm just sitting around, waiting for it all to end. It's, like, my third separate bout of cancer. The damn thing's determined to get me eventually." I pause again, waiting for a reply. "How about you?"

  "I'm good," he says, clearly lying.

  "You look uncomfortable," I tell him.

  "Right back at you."

  "I've got an excuse."

  "I hate hospitals," he mutters. "Horrible places. They take your soul."

  "How do you feel about having your photo taken?" I ask, smiling wearily. He sounds like one of those Native American Indians who're scared of being photographed. Dagwood seems like a smart guy, but there's an old-fashioned edge to him that seems somehow at odds with the modern world.

  "I've still got your camera," he says suddenly.

  I frown, before finally remembering the camera I lost at the church. The drugs are blocking most of my memories, but little moments keep slipping through. It's as if my mind is filled with floating specks of dust; every so often, one of the specks comes into focus and gives up a memory or an old emotion, but it soon drifts away again. I can't see them all at once, which means it's difficult to hold a proper train of thought.

  "My camera," I whisper, suddenly feeling its absence around my neck.

  "It's ruined," he continues. "I don't know what happened to it, exactly, but by the time I got back to the church and collected it, the damn thing had been pretty much crushed. I had a go at fixing it, but there was too much damage. The lens was smashed and the mechanism was twisted."

  "It's okay," I reply. "It doesn't matter now. I don't need a camera. What am I gonna take pictures of? The gray wall I stare at all day every day?"

  "Now that's not something I ever thought I'd hear you say." He pauses. "It was pretty old, wasn't it? I remember you saying something about it being something you were given as a kid."

  "When I was fifteen," I reply weakly, momentarily stunned by the thought of how many years have gone past since that Christmas. "Was it completely destroyed?"

  "Pretty much. I'm not an expert on that kind of model, but it was totally wrecked."

  "It doesn't matter," I whisper, holding back the tears. "It was just a camera. Just a thing."

  "The film survived, though," he adds, fixing me with a knowing stare.

  "What film?" I ask.

  "Jesus," he replies with a faint smile, "they've really got you doped up, huh? Don't you remember being in the church, and I came and found you, and you said you'd seen something in there." He pauses, as if he's waiting for me to say something. "Don't you remember that night, Kate?"

  I take a deep breath. Fragments of memory are still coming back, and one of them involves an image of Amin Bell in that dark church, his face illuminated by the flash of the camera. I guess I've been trying not to remember, but his image is still somewhere inside my mind. I also remember being at Dagwood's apartment a little later, recovering after... something...

  "Of course, I haven't developed the images," he continues with a faint smile. "I was dying to, but I figured you're the photographer, so you should be the one who has the honor of rescuing the film itself. It's all waiting for you."

  "Rescuing the film?" I pause for a moment, my mind still kind of hazy. "Take it," I say eventually. "I don't... It's over. For me, anyway. I have more important things to be worrying about."

  "Like what?" he asks.

  "Like this," I reply, holding up my hand to let him see where the line goes into my body. "Six months ago I had to make a choice," I continue. "I had to drop my work and focus on my treatment, or I was going to die."

  "I thought you were dying anyway," he replies.

  "I chose to try."

  "And it didn't work."

  "That's not the point," I say firmly. "The point is, I don't have the energy to go running around, trying to find some ghost in a photo. It was dumb. I was an unhappy woman living an unhappy life, filling her time with an unhappy and unhealthy pursuit. It was gibberish."

  "Maybe," he replies, "or maybe you were onto something."

  I shake my head.

  "So you'll let that film sit there, possibly containing the clearest image of Bell, and you won't lift a finger to go and develop it?"

  "You can develop it," I tell him.

  He shakes his head.

  "I really don't care," I continue. "Please, stop trying to -"

  "You do care," he says firmly. "I know you do. There are twenty-four images on that film, and if you won't develop them, they'll sit and rot forever." He pauses. "Even if I tried, I wouldn't be able to trust the results. The pictures would be... different if anyone other than you developed them."

 
"Bullshit," I whisper.

  "Film is a living thing," he continues. "You know that. It's fluid, ever-changing. It reacts to the person who's handling it. The image is as much in your body as in the emulsion on the film strip. One won't work properly without the other. I'm not just being stubborn or romantic here. I need you and I need that film, and I need you together. I can't use one without the other."

  "I thought I was the one on drugs," I whisper, barely able to summon the energy to talk. "You're talking like a madman."

  "You're the only person who managed to get a shot of Amin Bell," he replies. "The only one, at least recently. I need to know that he was really there in that church with you."

  "Is this why you came here?" I reply. "To bug me with ghost stories?" Taking a deep breath, I try to work out how to get him to leave. He's starting to pique my curiosity, and that's the last thing I need; it took me a long time to put all that stuff behind me, and I don't want to start raking over it again.

  "Please," he says again. "This isn't even about you anymore."

  "Is this why you came to visit me?" I reply. "To annoy me?"

  "I came because I need your help."

  "Look at me," I reply. "I can't even help myself."

  "You can if you try."

  "I appreciate the fact that you came," I reply, choosing my words carefully, "but I've spent most of the past ten years of my life chasing after something that never even existed. I'm going to die soon, and I've been forced to face up to the fact that I've wasted a lot of years. I have no friends, no family, no kids... Nothing. Just a bunch of negatives and old photos that my landlord's gonna have to burn when I'm dead. I don't want to waste my final months on the same bullshit chase that -"

  "You got anything better to do?" he asks, interrupting me.

  "I -"