by David Mark
My heart, bouncing off the inside of my skull and dropping through my arse.
Door swinging open to my left, and Kerry shuffling in. Family liaison officer supporting her arm. Same grey T-shirt. Face white as angel-wings, eyes like a snowman. Floaty skirt and flip-flops. Shaking. Small. Disintegrating. Wrapped up tight in her brother’s coat.
High as a kite.
Roper, clearing a path to me with his eyes, and winking.
Tony H looking up, seeing Kerry, and spinning round to me as though he’s on a spit. Eyebrows in his hairline.
Me melting into my chair. Ashamed. Humiliated. Beaten.
And suddenly, so very fucking angry.
“Fuck you, Roper. Fuck you!”
Out of my chair, picking it up by a leg. Hurling it at the crest behind his grinning, smug head.
Roper not moving as the chair ricochets off and the crest topples over behind him.
Everyone ducking. Girls shrieking.
Film crew swinging their lenses in my direction.
Me kicking over a camera, shoving Aled, bundling past the same young copper who yesterday, seemed to want to be my friend. Times change.
Out the door and into the rain.
Coppers running towards me on all sides.
Me reaching for the gun.
Slipping on the wet grass, soaked through. Everything slick. Oiled. Coppers’ feet going out from under them as they reach me and slide by. Melee in the car park. Wet hands in my face. Me, fighting on my back. Faces and boots and nasty yellow raincoats. Grunting and swearing.
Mud-wrestling. Me, a giant bar of soap in the bath, popping out of clutches and squirting into gaps.
Back on my feet and running.
Blood thundering in my head. Tears on my cheeks.
Six bullets lining up in my mind, pleading to be used.
Looking back as I run, at the faces at the canteen window, at the rolling cameras. The coppers sprawled on the floor.
Roper’s voice crackling on the radio.
“Let him go.”
Through the car park, up the road.
Running from myself.
Heart beating. Brain banging.
Crunching out a back tooth and spitting it out. Gruesome trail of spit and blood on my suit. Sticking my tongue in the hole and getting off on the agony.
Rain falling like a guillotine.
31
I can’t get my teeth into the vein. I’m a yapping dog trying to bite through a football. The flesh keeps sliding away from my gnashing teeth.
There’s something thick and buttery at the back of my mouth. My throat’s closed up; the screams and tears twisting it shut.
Tears soak my face and shirt. Snot runs into my mouth. There’s gristle in my back, my neck, scaffolding my stoop over the steering wheel.
Noise like a rumbling stomach escaping my lips, an ululating whine that makes my eyes twitch.
Sinuses tingling.
Chewing on the wrist of my right hand. Grabbing the biggest vein between my front teeth and pulling, tearing. Gnawing. Grunting.
Blood escaping the frayed graze. Bubbling up and spilling out as I chew deeper. Taste of meat filling my mouth. Claret soaking my cuff.
Can’t even formulate thoughts. Can’t analyse or introspect. Can’t talk myself through. Just lumps of sound, banging in my head alongside song snatches and film dialogue.
Roper. Kerry. Beaten. Jilted. Her, taken from me. Her, acting without asking. Led by another. Directed. Twisted. Bodies. Gun. Drugs. Duty. Kill. Kill. And Jess. Christ, I want Jess.
Fighting the traffic and losing.
I’m staring out the side window, still chewing myself like a teething baby
The cars have their headlights on half-beam, bringing more shade to the gloom. Mine aren’t switched on. I don’t want to extinguish the dark. It’s where I live.
Fuck!
Cursing my temper. My lack of control. Why didn’t she ask me if she should do it? Why didn’t Roper give me a fucking courtesy call? Why did I let myself show? Knowing, now, that I must be truly nothing, that I must be the fucking joke I always feared. I should be striking fear into people’s very souls. But nobody’s frightened of me. Nobody even thinks of me at all.
I spit on the inside of the window and wipe it into the steam on the glass. It’s gruesome with pink, frothy blood.
Flick on the lights. Half beam. Full.
Me, lighting a fag. Blowing on the ember.
Turn the cigarette around in my fingers, insert it, ash first, into the black hole of my gob.
Press the hot embers into the gap where my tooth was.
If I scream, I’ll fail.
Penance. Absolution.
Whole body vibrating with agony. Grit.
Smelling my burning skin.
Into the wrong lane.
First, second, third, fourth.
Cars swerving. Horns honking.
Me in a bubble of pain. Protected, in the knowledge it can’t get any worse.
Fuck the gun.
I’m a bomb.
32
“Went well,” says the young copper, standing at the urinal and talking back over his shoulder as Doug Roper washes his hands in the sink.
“Oh yeah,” he replies. “Peachy.”
Roper’s not ready to congratulate himself yet, but things are panning out perfectly. Superiors happy with the way things are going. He’s got evidence that’s only a casual drop and an easily-wrung confession away from a conviction. The Cadbury trial just about on track, when the pieces fall into place. And now Owen, fucking himself royally for the world to see.
“She gone?”
“Who? The girlfriend? Yeah, got a squad car to drop her back at that shit-tip of hers. I’ll go back and get the statement signed when you tell me what it should say.”
He’s learning quick, this one, thinks Roper. Not quite a protégé, but certainly a useful lad to have on side. Looks chinchilla-soft, but he’s already shown what he can do when his blood’s up, and he’s ever so keen to learn from his hero.
“When are we going to have him in then?” asks the young lad, eager to please.
“Laddo? Don’t worry, son. I’ve got plans. Got the call this morning. Minns has been spotted.”
“How do you keep it all in one head, sir?”
“You’ve either got it or you haven’t, sunbeam.”
“Have I, sir?”
Roper says nothing. Just thinks: We’ll know by tonight.
He walks back down the corridor past the canteen and up the empty staircase to his office. He’d insisted on a room with a view, and the large glass-window stares out across farmers’ fields and pastures filled with grazing, shaggy-legged horses.
He shuffles papers for a while, watches the horses in the hope that two of them might have a shag. Draws something pornographic on the cover of a mauve file in his in-tray, then picks up his phone and tells reception that they can tell the film crew he’s ready for them again.
Sometimes, he thinks, in these bored moments of waiting for the world to catch up with his thoughts and for his prey to fall into the traps he has dug, he wonders what it would be like to be a normal person. A Mr Average. A DS McAvoy. He shudders the thought away.
Impossible, sunbeam, he thinks, and cups his balls, as if testing a melon for freshness. That would be a world gone mad.
33
10.17am.
Owen Lee the Lonely, jogging up the steps to Hull Crown Court.
Only one news van today. Nationals bored already.
Me in my second best clothes. Soft grey suit with a sky-blue lining. White shirt. Leather gloves. Knee length, battered leather jacket. Receipts from four years ago in the pocket: admission for two to the amphitheatre in Verona; large cheese and tomato pizza, two bottles of Bud and a cooking apple soaked in rum and powdered sugar.
Remembering the jewels in Jess’s eyes, catching the light of ten thousand candles. Her, shivering, goose-pimpled, snuggling into my broad arms a
s the tenor’s voice soared in the cashmere darkness.
Through the door, lost in memories, regrets.
Scary Sal, lighting up as she sees me.
“Late today.”
“Busy man, Sal. I spread myself thin, but some people want butter both sides.”
Umpteen beeps as I step through the metal detector. Jim looking on.
“Missed much, have I?”
“Don’t think they’ve started yet. Cadbury’s late again. You weren’t here for the mum’s evidence, were you?”
“No. Heard it was pretty raw.”
“Very. Did herself proud though. What’s today?”
“Think we should be on to the boyfriend, and then it’s show-time. Cadbury’s mate – the one who found her body. Rumour is, Choudhury’s going to try and pin it on him. Young lad did a bit of time a few weeks after the body was found and somehow, Choudhury’s got his cell-mate onside. Going to say he confessed to everything. Bit of DNA to back it up. Tin-Tin’s going to make this his finest hour, the crooked bastard.”
“Fireworks, then?”
“Like the sky when I make love to you, princess.”
I feel the heat of her blush as I turn away and head up the stairs, stealing myself, ready to face the eyes of my little world.
Nonchalant. Carefree. Shitting myself.
Whole fucking bench of them, facing the stairs. Tom and Tony T. Steve. National lads. Radio jokes. Nudging each other and pointing with their stares.
Me, shrugging. Searching for a facial expression.
And then Tony H appears. Melting out of nowhere, all long face and yellow teeth. A vampire forming from a cloud of mist.
Taking my elbow, and leading me away.
Gossip and glares, burning the back of my head.
He says nothing until we’re tucked in a corner. He’s half hidden by a potted plant. I’m in the shadow of the toilet wall.
Checks over both shoulders. Ducks his head, then he’s off.
“She’s all right, mate,” he says, face earnest. “She said her piece and then left. Nobody bothered her. No questions. Just a statement, if you’re wanting it. Picked you up a copy.”
Me silent. Glowing, somewhere between my dick and my belly, in the knowledge that I have a friend.
I nod, try and articulate something, but I don’t know what to say. Don’t know how I feel. I have a hard enough time remembering my opinions without remembering my reasons for them.
He shakes his head, puts an arm on mine. And says: “Fuck, mate. I’d have lost it too.”
I shrink as my breath escapes; like a deflating doll. My limbs are suddenly floppy and loose. My back bent. I press a clammy palm to my brow and straighten my knees. Hold myself up by the head.
“I just lost it, Tone,” I say, and shudder as the words run across my tongue with the scuttling of a spider’s footsteps. I hear it in my head as a tinny sound. Small. Like fingers on a keyboard. I cough, carry on. “When she walked in there, I just went mad.”
“Yeah, mate,” he says with a trace of a smile. “Kind of spotted that.”
I smile back and breathe my way into a soft laugh. He joins me, and some of the tension leaves us both as we chuckle and shake our heads.
“Your newsdesk see it?”
“Doubt it,” I say, shrugging. “Neil can’t see his dick unless he breathes in. Can’t see him going to the effort of turning his head to watch the TV screen. I haven’t spoken to them yet. Didn’t have a lot to tell them from the press conference.”
“No, I’d imagine not. I managed to get a bit in for first edition. Front page appeal.”
“You mention my little incident?”
“Referred to ‘tensions running high at the emotional press conference’. That was about it. Radio Humbershite mentioned that one of the reporters had launched a personal attack on the senior officer, but nobody really bothered using it. TV people might do a bit later, for a bit of drama, like.”
“Christ, how did it look? Really?”
“Like you lost it and flipped out. Relax, though, mate. People understood.”
What?” I ask, flinching as though somebody’s tried to wake me by driving a needle into my eyeball. “You told them who Kerry was?”
“I had to,” he says, putting his arms up as though about to defend himself, or like a wizard showing there’s nothing up his sleeve. “What’s better? Them thinking you just spazzed out or knowing you were hurt because Roper had your sister up there? That he did it cos he’s a cunt and he wanted to show you up?”
I slump into the wall, forehead to the cool brick, and groan. “I know, but. Aw bollocks.” I give up, knowing he’s right.
“It’s fine,” he says, giving my shoulder a rub. He’s tender.
“And Roper?”
“Loved it. Made a joke after you left. Something about another happy customer, or your aim being as accurate as your reporting, then banged on. We were out five minutes after you.”
“How d’you cover it?”
“Well there was nothing more to it, once you’d gone. Kerry got upset as soon as she started speaking, once you’d fucked off. Got no sense out of her. Roper read a statement from her, but it was crap really. He wouldn’t say anything about Petrovsky. Nothing about gang wars. I put in some of the stuff that I had but the newsdesk took it out. Dull as dishwater by the time it got through the subs. Just some shite about a ‘caring and intelligent man’ being brutally shot to death as part of a double murder, in which another man was bludgeoned beyond recognition. Lukewarm. Crap, as well. How do you shoot somebody in a non-brutal way? How do you kill somebody gently? Death of a thousand paper cuts?”
I rub the bridge of my nose and wander around to the water fountain. Take a swig that I feel trickling down into my belly. I swill my mouth out, feeling the agony in my gum shoot down my neck. Spit the unpleasantness into the silver bowl.
Slap.
I turn at the sound of a cricket ball landing in a fleshy palm.
Choudhury. Gliding. Light on his pins for a fat fuck. Turban like the prow of a ship, cutting through foggy waters. Oozing across the landing, 15 feet away.
Stopping by the benches near the stairs to the canteen. A few words with a lumbering chap in a double-breasted blazer and threadbare cords. Choudhury leaning in. Words in his ear like he’s kissing his neck. Reassuring squeeze of a forearm. Files falling to the floor. A look from Choudhury that could straighten the other’s intestines.
Then a swish, and gone.
A couple of barristers stride past. Long legs and flowing robes. Solicitors behind them, pulling trolleys and riding coat-tails. The movement makes Tone and me look up, and as we do, Ella Butterworth’s family come out of a consulting room. They bring the cold with them. Their pain and grief is written in blue neon. I watch as a room full of people draw their clothing a little tighter, and shiver to find them damp.
Mum smiles, politely, as she passes Tony and me, and heads to the courtroom. I try to nod encouragement, but the action stalls, like a gulp that can’t be swallowed. And I’m just standing there. Seeing raindrops on muddy photo-frames and words, blurring and blotting on slivers of card, wedged into wreaths that should have been wedding bouquets. I’m cowering on a beach, watching a tsunami, their oceanic swell of grief, and wishing it would wash me clean.
Thinking of Ella Butterworth and the look in her eyes in the moment the blade violated her tender, delicate skin.
Imagining the shadows that danced across the pale canvas of her face, like cave paintings in the firelight.
Wondering if the girl who dreamed of pumpkin carriages and fairy castles had time to mourn the shredding of her wedding dress, her princess’s ballgown. Whether she spilled tears at the tearing of the expensive silk her family could ill-afford, before her mind turned to the business of opening her mouth, and screaming for her life.
34
It’s 1.24.
Me and Tony are sitting by the fire in Ye Olde White Hart. He’s on red wine. I’m onto my secon
d pint of lager. Wired and drowsy all at once.
Decent pub, this. Proper pub. Dark. Leather studded seats. Hard-wood floor, darkened and scuffed. Mahogany walls, almost black. Thick, frosted windows. An accountant and a solicitor propping up the bar, trying to make their lives more tolerable with two pints of Stella and a game of Sudoku.
I’m feeling all right. Three hours of work. Three hours of doing what I’m good at. Scribbling, at just under 100 words per minute. Writing down what comes out of the mouths of people who, for today at least, are interesting. Watching, as Tin-Tin Choudhury just kicked a great big hole in the prosecution’s case.
“I hate the twat, but he’s a talent,” I say, tipping a handful of peanuts into my palm, and proceeding to eat them individually, at junctures in my speech, as though devouring punctuation. “That really has to rate up there among my favourite days in court.”
“I’m with you,” says Tony H. His face lights up as he recalls it, and in his dirty brown mac, he looks for a moment like one of his own cigars, being inhaled at the feet. “He spat him out, didn’t he? Fuck, it really could go either way.”
We sit in silence, brooding. Cadbury’s acquittal would mean a scrum. It means national reporters in droves, flashing cheque-books, sticking feet in doorways, pissing off the police. It means regional reporters like Tony and me looking like amateurs, trying to persuade people to talk to us without a fucking penny or a pint to entice them. It means our backgrounders are a waste of time. It means a whole new investigation. More work.
On a human level, it means we’re living in a city where a man who hacked up a girl in her wedding dress is still wandering around.
It also means Roper has messed up.
But it has to be Cadbury. It has to be. If it isn’t, there’s evil among us. Evil free, and Jess missing.
“Wonder what he gets paid?” mutters Tony H. “More than me, no doubt.”
