JONATHAN SIMS

Statement of Lee Rentoul, on the murder of his associate Paul Noriega. Original
statement given May 29th 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head
Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.

JONATHAN SIMS

(Read a loud from the archived witness statement of Lee Rentoul)

Let’s get one thing straight right off – this is not a goddamn confession, alright?
If you go to the police with this, I will deny every word, and I know enough
about the law to know that even if I spill my guts to you about all the horrible
things I’ve done, it will count for nothing in court. It’s not like you’ll even be
able to help me, I just… My mate Hester said he came to you a few years back,
been seeing ghosts and that, and you guys looked into it and told him it was
some sort of noise messing with his head, ‘infasound’ or something, and he’s
fine now. I need that. I need you to tell me that it’s just coincidence and my
mind’s playing tricks, and I need to not lose any more bits of me.

So yeah, I killed that asshole Noriega. Stabbed him in the throat and left him to
bleed out on the dockside. Maybe that shocks you a bit, maybe not, but trust
me when I say he had it coming. Eight years we worked together, and it was
him that got carried away kicking McMullen’s head in and moved it from
assault to GBH, but sure enough when we get picked up he turns on me and I
get pinned for it. Five years I served because of him, while he walked free as
you please. I’d say that I was due a bit of payback and I certainly got it
It wasn’t my first choice, though. I’m not stupid and parole keeps you on a
short enough chain that slitting Noriega’s throat was not my top priority. Don’t
get me wrong, it was something I’d been itching to do for five goddamn years,
but I wasn’t in a rush. I had plenty of time to arrange something nasty for him,
and I wanted him hurt more than I felt I had to do the deed myself. So when I
got out in June last year, I bided my time and kept my ear to the ground. Tried
to get in touch with him, but was told by the few friends we had in common
that he wasn’t interested in talking to me. He’d clearly done ok for himself in
the years I’d been away, and could afford some muscle to make sure that I
didn’t bother him. I ended up with a couple of bruised ribs when I finally got
tired of the run-around and tried to have it out with him properly. It was laying
there, some grim side street in Lewisham of all places that I came to the
decision that if I was going to hurt this asshole, and I mean properly hurt him, I
was going to have to think outside the box a bit.

I decided to pay McMullen a visit. Before Noriega had gone to work on him,
Toby McMullen was just some street punk. These days he was just a street
punk who had trouble turning his neck. I’ve met plenty of born losers in my
time, I mean it’s kind of a given in this business, but I’ve never met someone so
intent on being a screw-up as McMullen. When I saw him he was high as a kite
and barely knew I was there, but you bet his eyes lit up when I mentioned Paul
Noriega. It took hours to get anything useful out of that waste of skin, but
eventually I pieced together his side of this sorry tale. Noriega had paid him a
visit in the hospital, apparently, before the police had picked us up, and
promised that if he fingered me for the assault, then he’d have all of the
narcotics his little junkie heart could dream of. Only once he was out of
hospital and my conviction had gone through, it wasn’t two days before
McMullen was out on his arse again, and Noriega didn’t want to know. Any
idiot could have seen it would play out that way, but not poor, stupid Toby.
Still, he’d been itching to get the knife in for almost as long as I had, and he had
had the freedom to plan it, so I asked him if he had anything I could use.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when he suggested magic. Toby had always
been into all of that mystical crap, even before the drugs, and if there was
some half-baked New Age fad going round you could bet you’d find it dribbling
out of his mouth whenever he was coherent enough to actually talk. I punched
him in the gut and turned to leave. He followed me, doubled over and
struggling for breath, begging me to help him. He said he was serious, said it
wasn’t like the other stuff, said he knew someone with real power, who could
put the hurt on Noriega, but he just didn’t have the money.

I should have kept walking. I should have shaken him off. I should have beat
him so bad he couldn’t turn his neck the other way either. But I didn’t. I
stopped and I listened to what that piece of human garbage had to say. I was
an idiot.

So Toby took me to see his friend Angela. He never gave me her second name.
I asked him what it was: Wicca, voodoo, some crystal bull? But Toby said no,
nothing like that. Said he didn’t really know how it was supposed to work, but
had a girl a few months back, had told him about Angela; said she’d used her
services on a particularly unpleasant ex-boyfriend. Apparently he’d
disappeared, and they never found a body. So then I’m thinking maybe there’s
no magic there, just a killer with a schtick, but hey, if that was the case it was
fine by me, just as long as Noriega got done.

When I finally met Angela, it was all I could do not to cave McMullen’s head in.
I’d just about convinced myself I was going to be meeting with a hardened
killer, maybe one that kept a bunch of spooky Halloween crap around, but still
someone who’d get the job done. I wasn’t even put off when we pulled up to a
well-kept suburban house in Bexley. But when the door was answered by an
old lady in a lilac dressing gown, I almost lost it. McMullen asked if she was
Angela, speaking in a quiet voice like he was actually scared of the geriatric
fool. The old woman said yes, she was Angela, and asked us to come in.
The house felt almost as old as its owner – faded floral print wallpaper, dark
oak furniture and threadbare carpets. The walls were covered with framed
portraits, the sort you’d get in any cheap antique store or charity shop,
although as we went into the living room I noticed something that I didn’t
expect: they weren’t paintings, they were jigsaw puzzles, each completed and
framed. And sure enough when we sat down on the worn cloth sofa, there in
front of Angela was another jigsaw, halffinished. I’ve got no problem with the
elderly, and if they want to throw away their last years putting together a
damn picture then I’m sure not going to stop them, but it wasn’t exactly going
to kill Noriega, was it?

I was so angry at this massive waste of my time, that when she offered us a
cup of coffee, I almost put McMullen face-first through the glass table in front
of us. I grunted something which Angela apparently took as a “yes please”, and
so a few minutes later there I was drinking instant coffee from a chipped mug
that this doddering old ass clearly hadn’t thought to wipe the dust off of. When
she asked if I wanted Paul Noriega dead, I nearly choked.

She asked it very matter-of-factly, like it was a question on some form she
knew the answer to but had to fill it in anyway. I glanced at Toby, who nodded
at me, and I thought what the hell, I might as well play along. So I said yes. Yes,
I did want him dead. And more than that, I wanted him to suffer. Angela smiled
when I said that, a warm smile that suited her round face, and said that that
wouldn’t be a problem. I started to explain the situation, but she waved it
away and told me that Toby had filled her in on all the details, and that there
was just one thing she needed from me, that he couldn’t provide. I started to
tell her that I wasn’t paying for someone’s gran to take out a hard case like
Noriega, but she said no, she wasn’t after money. She said that she was “well-
compensated” for the service she provided and that all she needed from me
was an object, anything that I had taken from Noriega. Not a gift, she said,
staring into my eyes with a look that I recognised from years of working with
very unpleasant people. It wouldn’t work if it was a gift.

At this point I was starting to feel uneasy. Not scared, alright, I wasn’t scared of
this old woman, but being around her was… bad. I don’t know how else to say
it, she was bad. You’ve got to understand, I know dangerous, I understand
dangerous, hell, I am dangerous. This was something else. But I wanted Paul
Noriega dead so badly. Five years ago, just before we’d been picked up by the
police I’d borrowed his lighter. It was a battered old Zippo, used to have a
picture of a topless woman on it, but now that was almost worn away. After he
turned on me in questioning, I didn’t feel much like returning it to the
treacherous backstabber, so I held on to it. I hadn’t thought much of it, but
here it was, still in the pocket of my jacket, all those years later. I handed it to
Angela, and she gave me that look again, and told me that it would work just
fine.

And then we left. Angela told us not to worry about it, that Paul Noriega wasn’t
going to be bothering us for much longer; we just had to wait until she was
finished. Finished with what exactly, she didn’t say, she didn’t need to. We
knew whatever it was we were probably better off not knowing.
The waiting came hard, though. After he’d had me roughed up, it seemed like
Noriega had decided I wasn’t worth worrying about. I’d see him walking those
streets like he owned them, his pair of legbreakers in tow, and I knew there
was nothing that I could do about it. He knew it too. So I waited. And I waited. I
waited for the shot, or the knife, or the poison or the… whatever would end
him for good. It never came. Days turned into weeks and there he still was, as
cocksure as ever.

I was patient. God, I was patient, but after three weeks I had almost written off
that useless old bag as a time-wasting con job. I was going to give her one
more week, just one, but then something came up that I couldn’t ignore. Word
came down that Noriega was meeting someone at the docks, some fence by
the name of Salesa. The man dealt mainly in stolen art and curios, valuable
stuff, and was paranoid as hell, which meant Noriega was going to be there
alone. It might have been a trap, sure, but I’d been sitting on my ass waiting for
him to magically drop dead for so long that if there was even a chance it was
on the level, I had to take it.

Turns out it was true, and went off smoother than I could have hoped for. I
found the warehouse a few hours before the meet, and staked out a good
spot. Then I waited. Salesa turned up first, a big Samoan guy with close-
cropped hair, flanked by four men in dark suits, who carried a square wooden
crate between them. They went into the warehouse, and sure enough five
minutes later there he is, that snake. He was alone, and seemed to be limping
slightly. He headed inside through the same door, leaving it unlocked. Perfect.
There was no point me going in yet. I wasn’t keen to get my head kicked in by
Salesa’s goons, so I just watched, my hand gripping the hilt of the combat knife
I’d bought at an army surplus store I know is happy to sell off-the-books.
It was almost an hour later that Salesa and his men left, still carrying that box.
They didn’t look happy, but I could have given a damn. As soon as they were
round the corner I headed inside, as quietly as I could, and there he was,
leaning up against a pile bricks, smoking. I started to move towards him, but as
I got near he must have heard me, and turned around. He started to say
something about reconsidering, and lowering the price, when he realised I was
not Salesa. Then a look passed over the face of Paul Noriega that I will treasure
forever. No matter what happens to me, the memory of that look of panicked
terror will stay with me.

He turned to run, but whatever was wrong with his leg meant he tripped over
the bricks instead. I grabbed him by the collar, my knife already out, and
dragged him up. I had always been the stronger of the two of us, and he knew
he couldn’t fight me. Holding up his hand, he begged me to wait, to listen. I
noticed that his hand was missing a couple of fingers, old wounds that had long
healed over, though I didn’t remember seeing them before. It didn’t matter; I
could hear the blood pumping in my head and nothing was going to stop me
taking my revenge. He begged for mercy, as I plunged the knife into him once,
twice, three times. Again and again and again I stabbed that backstabber until,
finally, I him let him fall. He landed on the floor hard, dead weight, his head
making a thick, cracking sound as it hit the bricks, and blood began to pool on
the floor around his body.

As the rage started to fade and my breathing returned to normal, I took a
second to look over poor dead Paul Noriega, and saw something seemed to
have been knocked loose when his head hit the bricks. Picking it up, I saw it
was a glass eye. I looked back at the corpse, and sure enough there was a
gaping hole where his left eye should have been. When had that happened?
He certainly had both eyes when we had worked together and all ten fingers as
well. He’d also had all his teeth, where now I saw gaps all over that dead,
smiling face. I shivered, though I don’t know why.

I won’t go into detail about how I went about disposing of the body. Just trust
me when I say that even if the cops did find any piece of Noriega’s corpse, they
wouldn’t be able to pin it on me. And life went on. His boys did come looking
for me when their boss didn’t return, but I knew to lay low for a while, and
soon enough they realised that if he was gone, they weren’t getting paid either
way and moved on. And so I had my revenge, and that should have been the
end of the story. But it wasn’t.

It was five days after I killed Noriega that I found the first package. I was on
Tottenham Marshes, near the reservoir, on business you don’t need to know,
and I came to a metal bridge over one of the streams there. Now this wasn’t a
place I went often, and I don’t think I’d ever crossed that bridge before in my
life, but there, lying in the centre of it, was a small box. It was wrapped in
brown paper and string, like an old-fashioned Christmas present, and had my
name printed on it in clear letters: LEE RENTOUL, FOR IMMEDIATE
CONSIDERATION.

Obviously I was a little bit freaked out at this but not as freaked out as when I
opened it. Inside, lying was a black cardboard box, full of cotton wool and a
single severed finger. It was obviously some sort of threat; some punk
reckoned they could put a scare on me. No chance. I threw the finger into one
of the canals and set the box on fire before throwing it in a bin. I headed home
quickly, keeping my attention all around me and my hand on my knife. I was so
busy looking behind me, I didn’t see the hole in front of me, and I tripped. As I
fell forward, I felt a hot pain in the hand that had been on my knife. You
guessed it. Falling had caused the blade to slice clean through my little finger.
I’m not too proud to admit that I screamed at this. I tore up my shirt, trying to
make a bandage to stop the bleeding, at least until I could get to a hospital. But
as I began to wrap it up, I noticed that it wasn’t actually bleeding. The wound
was closed. It had healed, like it had happened years ago. I didn’t know what to
think. I didn’t know what to do. So I just went home. I wasn’t getting my finger
back, so I figured I could try to deal with it after a decent night’s sleep.

There was another box at my flat. Same as before. This one contained two
toes. I tried to ignore it and keep my foot well away from any knives, but… I
was trying to adjust the settings on my flatscreen when it fell off the wall. Hit
my right foot and, well, have you figured it out yet? That was two weeks ago.
Since then, I lost four more fingers to accidents, most of my toes, this eye I
managed to put out on a goddamn fencepost. I’ve lost count of the number of
teeth gone, and believe me when I say that you don’t want to know how I lost
the hand. Each time, a box wrapped in brown paper: LEE RENTOUL, FOR
IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATION.

I’ve tried everything. Once I thought I managed to outsmart it. Spent the day in
my bedroom – nothing sharp, no edges. I’d taken out everything except the
mattress. It didn’t matter, I woke the next morning with an agony in my foot
far sharper than any knife could cut, and the big toe missing, just like the one
I’d received the morning before.

I knew it was Angela. Of course I did, I’m not thick. Whatever curse she’d laid
on Noriega must have passed to me. I went over there, you know. Went to
confront that old… and you know what happened? She let me in. She was,
nice, civil. Offered me another cup of coffee! I told her where to stick it.
Demanded, asked, begged her to stop whatever was happening to me. You
know what she did? She shrugged. She just shrugged! Told me that “Some
hungers are too strong to be denied”, whatever the hell that means. So I went
for her. I was going to strangle the life out of that curse-flinging bag of bones.
But as I reached for her, I… I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I know
that that’s how I lost the hand. I know I chewed it off.

Look it doesn’t matter. I just need your help. I need this to stop. I don’t know
how, but this is your area, right? This is what you do. You look into this weird
ghost crap, right? Well this is the definition of weird ghost crap, and I need you
to help me. I need you to save me from whatever is happening.
I don’t have much time. I got a box this morning, a few hours before I came
here. It was a tongue.

JONATHAN SIMS

Statement ends.

It doesn’t look like this case was ever properly followed up. According to the
supplementary notes, shortly after making his statement, Mr Rentoul became
violent towards Institute staff and in the ensuing incident there was… an
accident. No details are given, but it apparently required Mr Rentoul’s
hospitalisation. I’m reminded of a somewhat tasteless joke about loose
tongues. He did not return to the Institute afterwards, and his statement was
archived.

According to the arrest records Sasha uncovered, Mr Rentoul was telling the
truth about the somewhat chequered past of himself and his associate Paul
Noriega, with extensive files on both of them. The last listed interaction
between the police and Mr Noriega is two months before Mr Rentoul’s
statement, and since then no sign can be found of him in police records, or
indeed anywhere else.

I sent Martin to look into this ‘Angela’ character, not that I want him to get chopped up, of course, but someone had to. Apparently he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of 50. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. Useless ass.

Tim has done his best to try and hunt down Mr Rentoul and see if we can
contact him for a follow-up interview or evaluation, but it looks like he
disappeared shortly after making this statement. We were able to find his old
landlord, though, who said that Mr Rentoul vanished in early April of 2011,
leaving many unpaid bills and no forwarding address. He said that when he had
gone to clear out the flat, he had been surprised to find there was no furniture
left. All that remained in the house, he said, were hundreds and hundreds of
small cardboard boxes.

Recording Ends.

written by Jonathan Sims