by David Mark
I pick up the Pegasus again. Bring it down two-handed on his head. Hit him again. Again. And when I’ve stopped, it’s dark, and there is no head to hit any more, and I can’t feel my arms.
Lighting a cigarette with hands that can barely take its weight, and with fingers that turn the filter tip crimson.
And I search around inside myself for something good. Something decent. Something kind.
I find emptiness.
So I hold my sister tight. And pretend.
39
“And you’re sure about this?” asks McAvoy, trying to keep his tone even. “He ordered it in August last year? And it would only fit that make of car, yes? Wonderful. Thank-you.”
McAvoy hangs up. He’s alone in the office, save for a cleaner emptying waste-paper bins into black sacks. Everybody else in the pub or doing the rounds. They’d asked him, of course. Asked him to join them for a swift one. But they’d known he would say no, and he’d duly obliged. He couldn’t think of anything worse than breathing in their cigarette smoke, their lager breath; hearing them talk about old cases and past glories, and how marvellous life seemed to be before he’d passed his exams and transferred over from uniform. Better to stay here. Work hard. Nose to the grindstone.
He sits back in his chair and breathes deeply. He can feel a bit of a cold coming on. A tickle in his throat and a sniffling in his nose. Got chilled to the bone in the woods this morning. Hasn’t really thawed out.
Impulsively, he calls home. He tries to ration out these moments: perhaps one text in a morning, another in the afternoon, and a call as and when time allows. Roisin makes no such demands of him and doesn’t hold herself to an equal standard. She calls when she’s thinking of him, and she thinks of him a lot. She’s spent most of her life in love with him. They met when she was still a child and he a green-as-grass Police Constable. She was briefly resident of a halting site outside Carlisle and he’d been sent with a sergeant to have a quiet chat with some of the lads. Things had gone bad. Roisin had got separated from her family. Bad men came. They began to hurt her. And more by luck than anything else, McAvoy came to her aid. He hurt the men so badly he cannot allow himself to look at the memory for fear of what he sees. But Roisin knew then that when she was old enough, she would marry the big, blushing police officer . She was 17 when she saw him again. Arrested after being witness to an act of violence in Edinburgh at New Year’s Eve, she refused to speak to anybody save McAvoy: then working as a trainee detective with Cumbria Police. In the days that followed, they fell in love. They found the parts of themselves that were missing. She fell pregnant, and he proposed with a borrowed ring. And now he is a Detective Sergeant and she is his wife, and every day he thanks the fates for bringing her into his life, and begs whatever force controls the universe that she never tire of him, or stop seeing the hero she claims lies beneath the blundering, clumsy exterior. She is absolute in her assertion that he is the only good person she has ever met. The thought shames him, now. Shames him, as he considers Shane Cadbury, and Doug Roper, and the fact that he is lying to himself because he is scared, and doesn’t want to mess up his career or fall foul of a man who exudes charm and confidence and might, perhaps, be the devil.
“Hey you,” she says, brightly, when she answers. “Was just thinking of you. The boy rang your father. Had a nice wee chat. Wouldn’t speak to me, of course, but I heard enough. Your brother’s doing grand. Drinking less. Met somebody, actually. She used to be a nurse, so that’s good, isn’t it? Anyway, Fin’s happy, so that makes me happy. How’s you? Is it coming together? I heard the trial had started. That all turned out okay this morning, eh? Right place, right time. I can do some asking around, if you like. Somebody on the radio said it was maybe a drugs thing? I can ask Valentine, he knows about that stuff, and he dotes on you...”
McAvoy sits and listens. Lets her words wrap around him like a blanket. He wishes he could find the courage to write poems for her. He recites them, in his head, and hopes she hears them when her ear is pressed to his cheek.
“I’m panicking, Ro,” he says, quietly. “They’ll call me to give evidence, I know it. And I don’t know what to say. Do I have doubts? Of course I do! If I show Roper I can be trusted then I’m in his good graces and we have a future that offers Fin the very best. And yet...”
“And yet you can’t talk bollocks to save your life,” she finishes, a smile in her voice. “Aye, life would be easier if you could lie, but you can’t, and that’s hardly a character flaw. Do what you think right. Whatever that is, is the right thing to do. Don’t worry your prettyhead. I’ve baked, by the way. If you catch the killer before bedtime I’ll stay up and make you a baked camembert. Is that the right way to say it? I camembert getting stuff wrong...”
He’s laughing as he hangs up. Giggling, his shoulders shaking. He wonders what he would be without her. Wonders what he would be for.
He turns back to the computer, feeling equal to the task. He’s an investigator. A detective. It’s his job to look into things. To find answers. Justice, if such a thing is able.
I’ve got something, here. Worth following up. I’m in my own time now, he thinks. No harm in digging….
No point bothering Roper with it now, either. He’s got his own way of working, anyway. Never tells anybody anything, but always brings in his man.
Sitting there, skin clammy, cold, he thinks of that day. When he’d found her. That poor girl, diced and violated. So much blood. And that smell. The smell that will never go away. Thinks of Cadbury’s calm face. His words. “She was a gift,” he’d said.
The thought, that has pervaded his dreams, denied his sleep, drumming again.
He didn’t do it. He took her body and had his fun, but he didn’t stick the knife in. There’s somebody else. Somebody hateful, violent, broken-up inside. Somebody free.
He remembers Roper’s arrival. Slick and polished and calm and hungry. Took a look at Ella. Pulled a face. Turned away. Spotted McAvoy, white-faced, staring at nothing, bile in his mouth, and told him he’d done well. That he’d go far. How he’d taken over. Spun plates and juggled balls.
No harm putting the name in the computer, see what it throws up.
No, he thinks. Roper’s a strange one, but his way seems to work.
And this is my job. I’m good at it. I’ll show him.
His fingers hit the keyboard.
Types.
0-w-e-n L-e-e.
THE RAIN IS TURNING from an irritation into a downpour; fat droplets exploding as they thump down from a leaden sky. The wind is sweeping in from the coast and one side of Tony’s face is raw and stinging as he huddles inside his coat and scurries, stiff-legged, down the deserted street.
Ten miles from the city boundary, and a whole fucking world away. They’ve even got geese in the duck pond and there are no cock-and-balls spray-painted on the church door. Classy bastards, one and all.
Ripe for the picking, he thinks. Plenty to lose.
Although it’s the only road in the village, there are no cars to turn the deep kerbside puzzles into mucky spray, and while the Hull Mail info page promises that sunset won’t happen for another hour, the street-lights are on and the air is midnight black. Perfect conditions to duck and weave. To keep your head down, meet your source, and bribe her into handing over a folder full of gold.
He puts a hand on the door to the little pub. Takes a look over his shoulder. There’s a little old woman on the far side of the street, pushing a tartan shopping trolley, but other than that, he’s got the village to himself.
Tony doesn’t really like it out here in middle England. He prefers a city. Likes the smell of exhaust fumes and industry. It’s all too clean, this. The rain falls with a spirit of optimism, a poetic timbre, as it if still believes it can wash the filth away and make the world sparkly again by morning.
He pushes the cracked oak door and enters the gloom of the pub. A barmaid with rabbit teeth and David Hasslehoff hair is standing behind the bar, in conversation wit
h an old boy who’s leaning on a bar stool and drinking bitter. Tony gives the room a quick once over. Tiny place. Two rooms in an L-shape. Oak beams. Old timbers and black and white Edwardian pictures showing how the village used to look when a double-barreled surname meant something. Horse brasses and a copy of Yorkshire Life in the newspaper rack.
“Double Bells,” he says, pleasantly, using his sleeve to dry his face and push back his hair. “No ice.”
The barmaid pours his drink from the bottle and he gives an appreciative nod. He likes a lass who knows her measures. Doesn’t need a fucking optic to tell her when she’s reached 35ml. He downs it, and asks for another. She pours, gives a smile, and pours another. It’s larger than the last.
“Quiet today,” he says, waving his glass.
“The weather’s putting them off for now. We pick up about tea-time,” she says, conversationally. “Got a good after-work crowd.”
“Those that aren’t retired,” says the old boy, eager to get in on the conversation.
“Aye, it’s an ageing population” says Tony, in his most understanding tone of voice. “You’ve got to feel for the young uns, trying to buy a house in this day and age. Aint got a choice but to move to the city. It’s no wonder places like this are losing their identity. Only people who can live here are outsiders.”
There are nods from the old boy and the barmaid. Vague mutterings of agreement. A general consensus that the world is going to the dogs. Won’t be long until somebody mentions Poles and darkies, thinks Tony.
“We were saying that,” she says. “Poor Dan up on Tranby, he can trace his line back 300 years, but his son’s having to get himself a flat in Selby because it’s all he can afford.”
“Dan Atkinson?” asks Tony, pretending to try and place him.
“No, Sheridan. Tall bloke with grey hair. Drives a Passat.”
“Yeah I know him.”
He files the information away. Will be worth a favour from Sue in the features team. An in-depth analysis piece on the loss of identity in East Yorkshire’s most beloved villages. The sort of bollocks he would never read, but which he can write with his eyes shut.
They talk bollocks for a while longer. Rugby. The idiots on East Riding Council. Why it’s up to the man in the street to sort out his recycling when they’ve already paid their bleeding council tax. He sinks three more whiskies and finds out the old boy was a prisoner of war in Greece during World War Two. Keeps himself steady and dries himself on the fire, wishing Owen was here to help him take the piss out of the rich fuckers who occasionally scamper by the leaded glass.
Ah, Owen. You poor fuck.
At exactly 11am, the door opens, and the woman he’s waiting for walks in. He gives a satisfied smile, though he never had any doubts she would stand him up. They may be too good for him when it comes to hugs and kisses, but when he’s got them by the balls, they’re putty in his hands.
He gives a nod and a smug little smile. Orders her a glass of white wine without being asked.
The old boy gives him a look he’s accustomed to. It says: “You with her?”
She takes a seat as far away from the bar as possible. Up near the toilets, in the drafty corner away from the open fire. Tony surveys her as he walks closer. She’s 45 at least. Brown hair cut into a neat, highlighted bob. Designer waterproof, stripy grey and black jumper and a scarf at her throat. Would have been pretty once, but she looks like she’s lost interest. There are dark smudges beneath her eyes, and when she gives him a nervous smile, he sees lipstick on her teeth.
“Elle Dorcas, I presume,” he says, placing the wine on the varnished table between them and taking his seat. He never lets go of his whisky tumbler.
She gives a nod. She loses control of it, and it becomes a shake, a rapid succession of jerks that she can’t seem to stop.
“Relax,” he says, sipping his drink. “You look like you’ve got malaria. Drink your drink.”
She does. Takes a large pull. Coughs. Takes another. She looks him in the face, from beneath spider-leg eye-lashes tangled with mascara.
Her voice, an urgent whisper:
“You know what would happen to me….”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t care?”
“I care. Just not enough to spare you having to go through with this.”
She sneers at him. Her voice becomes a hiss. “When you called, I felt like my world was collapsing. What you’ve put me through ….”
“My heart bleeds. Keep your knickers on, and you won’t have a problem.”
She slumps back in her chair, staring into her glass. “And you won’t tell a soul. That’s it. You’ll let it go.”
“Cross my heart,” he smiles.
Tony’s enjoying this, getting off on her plummy, middle class accent. She sounds proper posh. A deputy head teacher at a village prep, perhaps. Head of the local Women’s Institute and a whiz at lemon meringue pie. He knows what she’s got to lose. That’s why he’s here.
“Do you want it now? Here.”
“Best all round,” says Tony, taking another sip of his drink. He’s feeling pleasantly light-headed, slightly pissed. Blood’s rushing to places where it shouldn’t, and he finds himself gazing at the little swirl of wrinkles at the base of her throat, and wondering if she smears herself in cream before she goes to bed; whether she wears high-necked nighties that accentuate her thick arms, her fleshy, round chin. He’s got her address. Wonders if she keeps the curtains open at night…
“I hope it’s worth it,” she says, bitterly, and reaches into her bag. She pulls out a pale blue folder, fat with paper. She hesitates, takes a drink, then slides it across the table to Tony.
“It’s all there?” he asks.
“Everything I could find. If there’s more, I don’t know where it is.”
Tony nods, and pulls the folder towards himself. He savours the moment. Doesn’t want to open the flap until he’s got the privacy to properly enjoy the moment. He tries to keep himself calm. Tells himself he already has enough to turn this story into a fucking cracker when the time is right. But he wants the documents in the folder to be good. Wants them to measure up to his fantasies.
He stares at the file. At the name on the white tag. Imagines what he’ll find inside and senses his breathing becoming shallow.
He drags his eyes away. She’s staring at him.
“Well?” she asks, her palms on the varnished table. He looks at her nails; manicured but bitten, the expensive French polish scored with teeth marks. Poor bitch must have been shitting herself, he thinks.
“Well what?” he asks, enjoying this.
“The pictures. The tape.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he laughs, distantly, wishing she’d just go away and leave him to enjoy this. “They’re going on the fire tonight.”
“That wasn’t what we agreed,” she says, desperately, her lip starting to tremble and her eyes filling with salt water.
He gives her a withering stare. “It doesn’t work with me, pet,” he says. “I’ve got a mate who would slice his bollocks off to stop you crying, but the whole thing just leaves me cold. If you hadn’t been caught with your pants down, I wouldn’t be here. If you’d been happy with what you’ve got at home, you wouldn’t be in this situation. So don’t blub. Don’t fucking snotter and wail and expect me to give a shit. I don’t.”
A bubble of snot pops in her nose. She’s a picture of misery. Her whole world has dissolved slowly inwards since the letter arrived at her work address. Second class stamp. Name in block capitals. One sheet of paper, stapled to a printout of the message she’d posted on the internet dating site. Then a line of text, and the name of the man she’d allowed to fuck her in a farmer’s field near Pocklington.
She hopes it’s over, now. Now she’s done what this feral little man with the too-big teeth and the yellow eyes has asked of her. Now she’s broken into her husband’s office and stolen the file that he’s caressing as if it were a lover.
“It was a one-off,” she says, pitifully. “My husband works such long hours. It was a mistake ….”
“Dry your eyes, councilor,” he says, draining his drink and picking up her wine. “We all make mistakes.”
She sniffs back more snot. Presses her knuckles to her eyes. “And this is over? I won’t hear from you again?”
“Cross my heart,” he says, finishing the wine. “Now, if you don’t mind…”
She fumbles for her bag. Finds herself apologising for wasting his valuable time, as if this were a fundraiser and he was a benefactor. She doesn’t want to upset him. Finds herself daring to hope that this will be it. That she’s got away with it. Now she’s robbed her husband, taken what this vile little man told her to take, and paid the price for her dalliance, her vicious orgasm, ground out against the wet plastic of a black-wrapped bale of hay; a man she only knows as Neptune133 pushing himself into her and calling her by his ex-wife’s name.
She’s almost at the door, when he says, without a trace of emotion, that he’ll be in touch.
The door closes in a flood of tears and snifflings.
Tony sinks back into the chair. Makes the most of the moment. Stretches it out. Walks back to the bar and orders himself the same wine that the councillor had been drinking. A packet of scratchings and a bag of Scampi Fries. Sits down in front of the fire, and opens the file.
40 minutes later, he looks up, his drink untouched.
Begins to mutter as he circles key words in the psychiatric report into inmate HH539413.
Borderline personality disorder.
Hallucinations.
Visions.
RECURRING TALK OF CLASSICAL FEMALE FORM, CONDONING HIS “SINS”.
No awareness of social conventions.
Capable of extreme violence without remorse.
Shows no regret for his actions, only for the repercussions on his family.
Recommend he remains under supervision for the foreseeable future.
