by David Mark
Tony knows his worth. Knows that if he ever decided to walk, there’d be an army of papers battling it out for his services.
He also knows he never fucking can.
He slumps back in the chair and opens up the newsdesk file on the news editor’s PC. Looks at his watch, eyeing the door. Still no sign. Back to the computer. Double click with an ink-stained finger. A list of stories appear, all waiting to be assessed, digested, then sent onto the sub-editors to be chopped down to size and laid out for the morning’s edition. He opens one at random. The upper class knobs out on one of the West Hull villages are moaning about plans for a new mobile phone mast. One of the young lasses has written it, and it’s not badly put together. He looks around the newsroom and spots her. 22. Black hair and bangles. Bit of meat around her middle and a strong jaw. Not pretty, but interesting for the eyes. He searches his memory banks. Joined in September, straight out of university. Family from Leicestershire. Degree in East Mediterranean History. Lives with a photographer and a few other young professionals in a big house off Springbank. Drinks with the other reporters in one of the fancy wine bars in Princes Ave. Going to serve her two years as a junior, then fuck off to bigger and better things. Thinks that stories are things that come on pieces of paper with a logo and contact telephone number attached. Thinks she’s being adventurous if she orders a half of cider on a school night. About as far from Tony’s style of reporting as you can get. Her contacts are press officers and the occasional vocal councilor. Nobody in the gutter. Nobody wading through other people’s shit and sifting out nuggets of copy. As far as he’s concerned, there are two types of reporter. Those who know how far you can reach into a wheelie-bin without toppling in, and those who don’t.
Owen knows. Hates himself for it, the soft shite, but he knows how to get a story. Knows how to get people to open up. Willing to use his looks. His silver tongue. Even a bit of menace, if nowt else is working. Used to, anyway. Been fucking moping the past few months. Let his misfortune turn into misery. Started doubting himself and feeling guilty. Clamming up when he should be spouting. Staring at nothing when he should be smirking at the tasty juror on the back row and taking a baby-step towards rummaging in her drawers.
His nose wrinkles, a little ripple of anger that he can’t keep down and which flashes across his face like the wake from a rowing boat. He wants to warn him. Wants to tell his mate that he’s getting tiresome. That he’s only where he is through Tony’s own good graces. That he’s sitting on what he knows because he likes the fucker. That the story can wait for years if Tony so decrees. That he doesn’t have to destroy Owen, as long as the soft shite stops being so bloody maudlin and starts playing the game again.
The young reporter looks up and catches him scowling at her. She gives a nervous little smile, then turns away. He keeps looking. Stares until he knows she can feel it. Until she looks up again. Sees him still staring. She smiles at him again. He doesn’t change his face. She looks away, and he looks back to the computer screen, smiling at his little victory.
He hates what’s happening to the industry. Hates these twenty-somethings who can live on Daddy’s money while they put in their two years in a town they know nothing about. That flows over them without touching. Always got one eye on the next step. All these Dick Whittingtons gazing at the bright lights of London and fantasising about the day they open The Express and see their byline next to an in-depth analysis of the Shadow Foreign secretary’s latest speech. Not Tony. He likes to take a city and wrap it around himself like candy-floss around a stick. Make it his own. Take a paper and put his stamp on it. His brand. His rag. His paper: My Times.
He deletes the story that the lass has sent across and a few others at random. Looks for young Tom’s byline but can’t see it anywhere in the file. He’s annoyed. Wanted to drop in a few typos and spelling mistakes to get the good looking bastard in trouble.
The screensavers come up and he looks at his reflection in the dark screen. Long, lugubrious face. Teeth like widely-spaced cricket bats. Slicked back hair and eyes like smoker’s fingers. Shakes his head as he feels it wash over him. The familiar feelings. He feels like lighting a cigar, just so the news editor will have to get up and ask him, in his faltering little squeak, to put it out. Stands up. Ambles over to the nearest empty desk and starts rifling through the press releases. Usual shit. Pubs re-opening under different names. Local businesses celebrating anniversaries. Political parties criticizing their opponents for not fixing the potholes on the Longhill estate. Bollocks, really. Tony doesn’t go near a story unless it’s a potential splash. He doesn’t do local news. He does news that happens to be local. Officially, he’s the crime reporter, but it’s a coat that buttons up tight over a multitude of sins. He does sleaze. Blood. Does anything juicy. If it doesn’t come festooned in one or more bodily fluids, he’s not interested.
He takes his phone out of his pocket. Nothing.
Pulls out the Batphone. 666999. It still makes him laugh.
One missed call and a voicemail.
Listens to the message and nods, a pen sliding into his palm, scribbling some names and numbers on the back of somebody else’s note-pad. Hangs up. Takes another sip of stone-cold tea.
Christ but he’s bored.
Click-clack, click-clack.
He breathes out. About fucking time.
The librarian passes his desk, too-big slip-on shoes slapping against the soles of her feet. She gives him a smile.
“You gracing us with your presence?” she asks.
He gives her a grin. “I just love watching you leave,” he says.
She’s still talking as she walks away. Tony watches her ample backside swing. She’s a plump lass in her fifties and her arse is enormous. Could balance a beer on her coccyx if you were so inclined. Couldn’t fuck her on her knees though. Wouldn’t get close.
He studies the computer screen for another few minutes. Visits past glories. Looks up his byline on Google and reads some scoops from back in the day. A stabbing in Basildon. Pretty young blonde diced in a car park on her way home from the opticians where she worked. He remembers the story. Remembers the car park. The uneven tarmac with the big puddles of oily water that stained his socks. Detective Inspector had tipped him the wink. He’d got there first when they were still scraping her up. Allowed him inside the tape. Killer had done a fucking job on her. More than 80 stab wounds. Fucking exhausting. Tony had followed the story for weeks. They arrested her boyfriend but it never got to court. Frittered away. Story was dead before the last petal fell from the mound of flowers laid at the scene. Poor lass. Had been pretty. Too pretty for him.
He stands and slips his feet back into his shoes. They’re still wet, but it doesn’t matter. Puts on his coat and heads for the door, a trail of muddy footprints on the soulless blue carpet.
A nod to the news editor, and a promise to call when he knows any more about the Country Park killings. Then out the door and into the stairwell. Down a flight of stairs. Another. It’s dark beyond the frosted glass and the weather sounds ghastly as it hurls fistfuls of rain at the panes. How would Owen describe it? he asks himself, mockingly. Like soil on a coffin lid. Fingers twitching on a crystal whisky tumbler? Soft shite. He tries a metaphor of his own. Like piss on a metal urinal? Perfect.
The lights are off in the corridor that leads down to the archives, but Tony knows his way. Passes two closed office doors, then reaches out with his fingers to find the frame of the library door. Reaches into his pocket and pulls out a huge ring of keys. With a bit of wiggling, he can find one that will open just about any lock, and this one is familiar territory. By touch, he finds the key with the bit of masking tape around the stem, and slips it into the lock. A quick motion and he’s in, pushing the door closed behind him before switching on the bank of striplights.
He breathes in. Savours smell of old newspapers. Decades of copy, slowly turning yellow in manila folders and burgundy leather ring binders. Row after row of metal shelves, stacked with
yesterday’s news. The reporters upstairs treat it like a museum. Pop in on their first week to meet the librarian, say hello and marvel at the fact that somebody spends their day manually archiving every single story that’s ever hit the streets of Hull. Then they fuck off back upstairs to use the computer database for background info on current cases, and forget this subterranean treasure-trove even exists. Tony loves it down here. Gets on well with Gillian, the gobby, wide-arsed librarian who makes up for barely seeing a soul for 40 hours of each week, by gabbling on about shit whenever somebody crosses her radar. Some days, when the snouts haven’t rung and the coppers have got nothing more to offer than a half-hearted nonce, he comes down and picks a file at random. Holds it by the spine and lets it fall open. He always finds gold. A snippet from the sixties about a drunk and disorderly. Young fella getting 30 days for pissing on a police horse outside Rayner’s on Hessle Road. Easy enough to jot down the name and find out where they are now. That particular lad had grown up to be one of the bigwigs for British Gas, then become a magistrate when he retired. A phonecall and a subtle letter, and Tony had another VIP in his pocket, drip-feeding him exclusives, opening up forbidden files, looking through court records to find phone numbers and contact details, only too happy to play ball and keep his name out of the papers.
Tony walks between the shelves, his fingers tracing the spines of the bulging folders. Pulls one out at random. Selects a snippet of newsprint, glued on crumpled A4. A murder from 1963. Lad beaten to death at King George Dock. Body found in the water. Visiting seamen suspected. He makes a mental note to find out what happened, then carries on down to the far end of the room.
There’s a bucket of stagnant water in the corner, next to the radiator. It’s the Hull Mail’s answer to a humidifier and a vague attempt to protect these thousands of pieces of old paper from drying out and falling to bits. It’s not working.
He finds the little step-ladder that Gillian uses to reach the top, dust-encrusted files, and climbs up. Selects the file he came here for.
A-C, 1921.
Nobody’s looked in it for 80-odd years. It had seemed the best place to hide his find.
He walks to Gillian’s desk and sits down. Leafs through the old pages until his fingers seize on a plastic folder. Retrieves it and stares for a few moments at the headlines. The name. Pulls out the documents. Flicks through them. Finds the page that had first caught his eye. The face. Younger. So much younger. But still a handsome cunt, even at nine-years-old.
Tony spends a lot of time here. Enjoys many a quiet evening, when Gillian’s gone home and he’s got the place to himself: the chance to pan for gold in isolation. That’s how it had been that day. When he yanked the file from the wall. Early Eighties. H through M. Skimmed dreary stories and speed-read through slow news days. And then saw the headline. The eyes. And then the name.
He wonders why it brings him such comfort. Wonders why he takes such pleasure in knowing what his friend had once been. What’s he’d done. What it had cost him.
He reads the story again, although he could recite it from memory. Savours every adjective. Rolls every “horrific” and “bloodbath” around the mouth of his mind. Stares into the child’s eyes and feels the connection. The spark. Sees something on the dark pupils, some spark of flame, some flicker of colour, that he finds at once alluring and familiar.
“That’s never…..”
Tony spins in his chair. Young Tom is standing behind him, brow furrowed, mouth slightly open, wet hair plastered to his place face. “Is that…?”
Tony’s arms embrace the cluster of documents and hold them to his chest. His heart is racing. How did the little fucker sneak up on him like that? How much did he see? What does he know? He’s my story. He’s mine.
“Tone, you were miles away…”
Tony tries to put a smile on his face, to pretend that he’s been startled. Tries to laugh it off. He fails. His face betrays him. There’s a fury in his eyes, something territorial and animal.
“Why are you down here?” His voice is dry paper.
“What? Oh, one of the subs reckoned he recognised a name from this kiddy-fiddler trial that stars tomorrow and the database was down so I popped in on the off-chance Gillian was still here. You were miles away. Anything good?”
Again, the attempt at a smile. He wants to force his face into a knowing smirk, to tap his nose with his forefinger and imply he’s onto something big. But his hands are so tightly clenched around the folder, he can’t seem to let go.
“I think she’s gone,” he croaks. “Must have forgotten to lock up.”
“Yeah,” says Tom, distantly, his eyes on the folder clutched to his chest.
“I’ve got what I came for anyway,” says Tony, standing awkwardly, still holding the papers.
He knows, thinks Tony. Fuck, he saw.
“After you,” says Tom, backing away.
Tony’s knees are weak as he walks back between the filing cabinets, Tom a shadow at his shoulder.
“You leaving that?” asks Tom, all innocence, nodding at the folder. “Sacking offence to take them out, remember.”
Tony does manage a smile, now. “I think they’ll make allowances.”
“Best not risk it.”
For a moment, they stand there at the doorway, eyes locked, a battle of wills. Then Tom looks away. “Hear no evil, see no evil,” he says, brightly.
“Good lad,” says Tony. “You’ll go far.”
A pause.
A whisper.
One stinking foot on each path at the crossroads.
A gulp, and a smile.
And then, because somewhere inside him he knows that it will open a door that he would never have opened on his own, he reaches up and puts the folder on top of the nearest pile.
He feels like he’s abandoning a child.
Tony walks back into the corridor, pupils expanding in the blackness. He’s shaking. He listens for Tom’s feet behind him on the linoleum floor, but hears nothing save the sound of rustling paper.
“You silly, silly bastard,” he says, under his breath.
Turns the corridor and stops, leaning against the wall, eyes closed and chest heaving.
A wrinkle of his nose.
A Hamlet in his hand, placed to cold, wet lips.
Eyes aflame as he sucks on the burning cigar.
A shake of the head. Fears and doubts and second thoughts expelled in a plume of grey.
Decision made.
“Owen. You poor mad bastard.”
36
Later.
Me.
Steps from home.
Scared and angry and desperate to do harm.
Through the big front door that faces into the park and the theatre. Wincing, as if in pain, as the memories hit me like sharp stones.
I’m remembering. Jess and me looking out of our bedroom window at the crowds of theatre-goers on opera night; Jess looking at the pretty dresses and telling me which outfits didn’t work. Me, impressing her with stories about Puccini and Bizet. Telling her the plots of Carmen and Madame Butterfly. Quoting lines that had managed to take lodgings in the soup of my head. Telling her love is a gypsy child who knows no laws. Her eyes sparkling like frost, and my hands on the cold, fragile bones of her hips. Promising to take her some day. Promising myself I would work up the enthusiasm to do so. Knowing she would cry when I did. So many tears, in one girl. Sometimes I feared she was melting from the inside out. Happy or sad, but still the same tears.
Nausea licking my throat.
Down the corridor to my left, and through the door. Up the stairs. One at a time, and each step heavy.
Remembering the day when we moved in. Trying to get a three-seater sofa up these fucking stairs. Dad and me, trying to pivot it around the curve. Unscrewing the feet to get it through the doors. Solving problems, together. We’d let him help because it made him feel good. It was a Dad thing. A father and son thing. Sweat and toil, and greasy muck on our forearms and back. Treated hi
m to a sweet and sour chicken at the Chinese on Cottingham Road as a thank-you. It was an escape for him. A night away from Mam. A night where he didn’t have to look at the creature in the striped pyjamas and dressing gown, evaporating before him. The lump beneath the bed clothes getting smaller, as the shark in her tit devoured her. Dark shadows beneath her eyes. Veins snaking over her skin like tree-roots, pulling her under the earth. Eating tinned fruit from a plastic spoon and Dad’s hands. And Dad, giving it all so willingly, caring for her with such tenderness and fire. Strong. Still proud, despite the fall we’d all taken. Proud to still call her his wife, and me his son. Get her through it, then start on Kerry. Get round to me in the end. That was his plan. And now she’s dead. And Kerry’s dying in bite-size portions. And I’m a murderer. And Dad’s lonely and small in a flat in Scarborough. Tying flies for a fishing trip he’ll never take. Framing pictures, swapping frames, trying to find an outline that makes his family sparkle the way it used to. Before I did what I did.
Watching my feet, counting my steps. There’s coffee stains on the blue-grey carpet. Adverts for yoga and pilates on the noticeboard at the bend in the staircase. A sign from the caretaker, asking people not to smoke in the communal areas as there had been several holes burned in the carpet recently. Badly spelled, but heartfelt. Unlikely to mean much to the lawyers and teachers, the reporters and consultants, who believe, quite rightly, that £660 a month entitles you to shit in the fucking hallway should you feel the urge.
