by David Mark
“I’m not local, mate. Hotel, remember?”
“But you heard the radio? Trial going on at the moment. Big trial. Few months ago a lass in a wedding dress got cut up. Butchered, she was. Raped. Done in the arse. Real sweetie, too. Fucking terrible. Psycho shit.”
“I remember,” I say. “Big deal when she was missing. They’ve got someone though, yeah? I heard he had coughed to it.”
“Trial’s going on, now. Wrong man, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I know the guy that really done it. And tomorrow I’m telling the court. Star witness, me. Gonna get an innocent man off, I am. Hero of the hour. Put that little shit Lewis away instead.”
Me. Holding on. Trying to control it.
“Christ,” I say, and my voice sounds like there’s a foot on my throat. “Wrong man? How did they fuck that up? I thought they found her in his flat, or something? Yeah, I remember it now. They’ll have DNA and forensics and stuff. Hard to see how they got that wrong.”
He bristles, giving me a pissed-off look. “Well, they did. I know who did it. He confessed when we were pad-mates.”
A drip falls from the ceiling. I say nothing. Let the silence build.
“The barrister who’s defending the guy in the dock. Big rich prick in a turban. He’s paying for the hotel and keeping me happy.”
“Sweet deal,” I say. I give him a nudge, sweaty skin on sweaty skin. “Who was it then?”
“Lad I knew inside.”
“You done time?”
“In and out, y’know. Bad boy, me.”
“Looks like it will be the making of you though. You play this court case right you’ll be getting well fed.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Did he really confess, then, this lad you know?”
“Yep. Laughing he was, in our cell. Little ratty fucker. Laughing, about how his mate was going to go down for it, and he was the one who sliced her up.”
“Must have been hard not to tear his throat out.”
Drip.
“Had to keep my nose clean,” he says. “In for drugs, I was. As ever. Couldn’t add GBH to the list. Getting him now, though, aint I?”
“Suppose so. Christ, the lad in the dock will think you’re his knight in shining armour.”
“I am.”
“Good lad, is he? The one you’ll be getting off.”
“Oh yeah. Been stitched up.”
“What about the DNA though. Plant that, did they?”
“Must have. You know coppers.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Silence, again. He rubs at his big arms, clearly brooding, then snaps a hard look at me. “Don’t need you making me feel shit about it. He said it. That’s all that matters.”
“Whatever you say, mate. None of my business.”
He’s shaking his head now. Something’s bothering him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? A bloody journalist...”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, indignant. “I don’t know you from Adam.”
“Did he send you? Choudhury?”
“Choudhury who, mate?”
“Or are you one of the copper’s lads? That slick prick? He said he’d get me. Said I would regret it...”
“You can piss off with your accusations, mate – I only wanted a bit of down-time. You stay in here with your paranoia...”
I start to stand and he closes his huge great hand around my calf and digs his nails in to the muscle. A pain like nothing experienced before rips through my left leg and I lash out with my right: instinct taking over.
It’s a decent kick, knocking his head back against the wooden wall, but he keeps hold of my leg and I fall with him as he slips from the bench and down onto the wet tiles. We crumple on the sodden floor; hands slipping off oily skin, fighting for purchase, a meaty forearm hitting my jaw, and I claw myself up his body, reaching for his thick neck.
“Get the fuck off...” he hisses, and catches me the face with a hard right hand. I hit him back. Slam his head against the tiles.
He pushes again. He’s far too strong, and I fall to my left onto the wooden bench, sprawling on the hot wet wood.
He’s pushing himself away from me now, and as he opens the door the cold and the dark flood in. He turns back and tries to stamp on me but I throw myself forward, arms around his waist, and he falls on the hard tiles with me on top of him; half in and half out of the sauna door, between light and dark.
I let go. Raise my hands, and back away. Slither backwards, and feel the cool, wet glass of the door upon my back. Minns scrambles to his feet. Turns. Runs for the stairs.
He slips in a puddle of his own sweat. Skids right and falls like a tree. His head hits the tiles so hard that it bounces.
And I’m sitting there, staring into wide, open eyes, watching them fill with blood; watching the dark water fill with red.
Feeling nothing.
Not even pain.
It’s suddenly all just funny. These bodies. These people who keep dying around me, like I’m a fucking plague. It’s fucking hysterical.
So I start to laugh. Laugh like a lunatic.
I’m still laughing as I slip Minns’s body into the ice-cold plunge pool, and head up the stairs.
The gun is calling like a siren.
42
8.54pm.
Owen Lee the Lonely, sliding between two metal barriers and onto the tarmac of Ferensway. One lane closed for the workmen to play with tomorrow. Climbing over the metal rail in the centre of the road, waiting for a gap in the traffic, then scurrying to the far side.
I don’t look at the hotel or the gym as I go. They’re behind me, fewer than 50 feet, but I’ll look that way when I’ve done what I need to do, and I can head back to Kerry, free of distraction.
The adrenaline is leaving my system. I’m shivering, rubbing my arms and stamping my feet as I stomp through the insipid drizzle that turns the city lights into an abstract painting of reds, golds and strips of white.
Shitty end of a shitty city centre. Tattoo parlours and greasy spoons, cheap package holidays and a circle of drunks around the war memorial and its cold rendition of a Tommy rescuing his mate.
The smell of chips and curry sauce from the dirty grills and bright lights of the takeaway.
Me, hands in fists.
Fists in pockets.
And I’m coughing as I push open the door to the Sandringham.
Tony H smiles, but doesn’t show his teeth.
He’s alone in the bar. Alone. No staff. No customers. Just vague half lights, illuminating the tiny bar that only got rid of the sawdust on the floor when the landlord found a nest. Only food is pickled eggs. Clientele usually share three tawny yellow teeth between them. No posters on the walls. No cushions on the chairs. The till isn’t electrical and they don’t do receipts.
Tony H, standing by the bar. No drink in front of him. No cigarette.
His face the colour of a notebook.
The notebook on the bar in front of him.
With his eyes he says sorry.
With a shake of his head, he apologises for what he’s about to do.
With a nod, he points behind me.
I hear sudden movement. Waterproof coats rubbing together. Heavy steps. A camera clicking. A director whispering ‘action’.
And I don’t even turn around as Roper puts his hand on my shoulder, bends my arms at the elbow, and a second set of hands cuffs my wrists together.
“Owen Lee, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of...”
Me, just staring.
Tony looks away first.
I don’t notice his eyes leave mine, or him scribbling in his notebook, or the flashbulb in my face.
I’m staring at the hole in his head that only I can see.
43
11.18pm.
Me.
Sitting on a mattress no thicker than a sandwich, shivering in a paper suit.
Black ink on my fingertips. My photo
in a file.
It’s all shrunken down, like the TV we had when I was small, with its picture that gradually dwindled down to a tiny dot in the centre of the screen when you pulled the plug from the socket.
I’m inside the dot now. A prisoner in a pixel. Stuck in a full stop.
Trapped in here, in this room with its pale green walls and its white tiles and its black graffiti and its wet floors and dripping ceiling, and the weak light that dribbles through the hole in the metal door.
I sit and hold my bare feet with fingers that don’t remember warmth, and I lose myself in the rocking, the rocking, the rocking back and forth.
44
Boots. Voices. Darkness suddenly darker.
Keys. Metal. Chains.
Iron on steel.
A scraping, like nails on unvarnished cay, like teeth on wool.
Light, filling the room in increments with its pissy yellow glow.
The corridor coughing illumination into my cell.
A shape against the light.
Roper.
Stepping forward.
Face obscured by the glare.
The sound of a smile. The rasping creak of a smirk creasing stubbled skin.
Me, dressed in paper and pimpled flesh.
Huddled and folded, holding my feet and rocking, rocking, rocking…
Darkness again.
Another figure in the doorway.
Larger. Something in its hand.
Me, raising a hand to my brow as if in salute.
My own thin elbows in my ribs.
Trying to find the style to smile.
A step…
Roper’s face in mine, now.
Breath soft, like a lover’s.
Gently swaying in time with my rocking as he bores through my irises and pushes on.
He steps back.
Brings his arm up and under. Up, then down.
Hard.
The snarl on his face as ugly as the smile now glinting in his eyes.
And I’m on the wet floor with my suit in shreds and blood in my mouth.
Sprawled out and looking up as he stands over me, a telephone book in his right hand.
Thoughts crashing into each other like a pile-up on the motorway. Everything coming to a halt, save for spinning wheels and blinking lights and the first whimpered cries.
He squats down over me, one loafer on my right wrist.
“Sticks and stones may break your bones but names can never hurt you.”
Takes a look at the book in his palm and the blood on my chin.
“Depends how many names.”
MCAVOY, rounding the corner, sensible shoes beating a rhythm on the lino: a sound like stampeding horses. Still got his pyjama top on under his sweater and jacket. Got him, he’s thinking. This is it. He followed my lead, he says to himself. Went out and got him. Don’t expect a thank-you but this could be the start of something. Least he can do is let me in on the interview. I deserve it.
He’d come sprinting into the station the moment he heard the report on the radio that he kept by the bed, turned low, like classical music, soft as Roisin’s gentle breathing…
And then he hears it. The unmistakable, crunching sound of violence and laughter.
A growl, emanating from the belly of the station. Animal and ugly.
He stops. Slows.
There’s rotting meat in his nostrils: bile climbing in his throat.
And stepping out of the cell like the devil himself: smiling wide.
Roper.
45
I’m dragged back onto the bunk.
The young blonde copper’s grabbing the skin beneath my armpits as he manhandles me into a sitting position. There’s more pain; a sharp, precise sting through the throbbing agony in my neck and crown, and I hear him snigger as I twist in his arms.
“Look at me.”
Roper, standing astride me, in a silver two-tone suit, grey shirt and oxblood tie. Leather coat. Black gloves.
“Look at me.”
I raise my head, pain shooting from my neck to my toes and back again.
He brings the phonebook down again on the back of my head, spine first.
I sprawl onto the floor.
Blondie picks me up. Puts me back on the cot.
Roper hits me again.
Takes off his coat in a graceful shrug of rustling leather and a cloud of Aramis.
Pulls his extendable baton from a pocket. A flick of the wrist and it’s two-foot long.
A nod to Blondie. Grabs me and sits on my chest, holding my left leg with his strong hands as I squirm and struggle to breathe.
Directs my foot over the end of the cot, bare toes twisting and curling as though trying to make their own escape.
Wet cloth in my face, pressure on my chest and jaw, pain everywhere.
Wham.
I hear it before I feel it.
Flash brings the baton down across the knuckles of my toes with a sound like a branch breaking in two.
The pain comes. White hot and sickening.
I kick and roar and clench my fists and bite down hard with bleeding teeth as I struggle to shift Blondie. I need to see the damage. Need to squeeze my broken toes with my hands and roll into a ball and sob.
The pressure subsides as Blondie steps down.
I roll into a ball, my legs drawn up, my toes hot and throbbing in my palm, my teeth biting into the mattress. There’s snot and blood on my chin.
Three loud bangs on the cell door. A tssk of irritation from Roper.
A big red face at the window: eyes that can’t quite believe what they are seeing.
Me, hoping against hope that I still deserve help.
46
“Happy now, Sergeant?” asks Roper, enjoying the look on McAvoy’s face. “Your hunch was right. Not that we needed it, of course, but at least your instincts are correct.”
They’re standing in the corridor outside the cell.
“You don’t need to do that,” McAvoy says, quietly. “There’s enough evidence…”
“I don’t need to. I just fucking want to,” says Roper, astonished that there are people in this world who won’t kick somebody if they are down. “When you’ve been here a few more years, you’ll want to as well. And even if you don’t, you’ll know when to shut the fuck up about those who do.”
“You’ll kill him,” says McAvoy. His stomach hurts, and his fingers are numb. He can smell rotting food.
“Nah,” says Roper, listening to the grunts. “We’re very experienced.”
“I can’t be a party to this,” says McAvoy, and he finds there is a pain in his throat.
“But it is quite a party. Go on in. Give him a prod. You can learn a lot from me.”
“I want nothing from you.”
“Come on, sunbeam,” says Roper, enjoying every minute. “God loves a sinner.”
47
Keys. Metal. Chains.
Light, filling the room in increments with its pissy yellow glow.
Me, braced for it. Up on my haunches: coiled.
Roper.
He steps in front of me, and gives me a nod, as one professional to another. He takes the lit cigarillo out of his mouth and proffers it. There’s a suit carrier draped like a deflated skin over his right arm.
I hesitate, reach up, take the cigarillo and inhale. It feels good. Warming, somehow.
He extends a hand and I take that too, and he hauls me to my feet, and I stand naked, bruised and bleeding, in the middle of the cell. He gestures to the bed and I take a painful step, then sit down on the mattress.
He takes off his coat, puts it around my shoulders, and retreats.
He stands with his back to the door, and the back of his head blocking the spy-hole.
He says nothing for a while. Lights another cigarillo and watches me like a stud watches the dancefloor.
My hands start to twitch.
“Why did you do it?” he asks, his head on one side and an eyebrow raised theatrically.<
br />
I smile, weakly, and say: “Fuck. Off.”
Roper smiles at the gesture. Nods. Has a moment of inner-dialogue that I can’t fathom, then nods again, as if making his mind up.
“I’m only asking, because from now on, you’re not going to have much to say in this conversation,” he says, softly. “I’m going to tell you things, you’re going to nod, and when we’re done, you and I will be friends again, and I won’t have to worry about you being a silly boy.”
I try to say something clever, but any fight that’s still within me, is saving itself.
“Good lad,” he says, and pushes off from the door. Four steps, and he sits down next to me, his legs touching mine. Slings an arm around my shoulder and leans in. He whispers in my ear until I’m warm.
“I’ve never actually got round to thanking you, Owen. I must be honest, when you broke that story about me as a kid and the world found out I wasn’t just Doug Roper, it really did change my life. I won’t say I wasn’t furious with you at the time, but look at how far I’ve come since then. But I’m nowt compared to you, son. You’re a better story than I am. I’m good at knowing who to poke around inside, if you’ll forgive the double-meaning. You always did seem a little bit different to the rest of the herd. So I had a look into your life. Your past. The things you did. You’ll never guess what I found. I put you away in my backpocket. Got to know you. Liked what I saw. And I kept your secrets secret. I’m good at that, at keeping something back for when you need it. I’ve got half this force stitched up with secrets. I’ve got a lot of favours to cash. I’m untouchable, lad. Got very big plans, got a future doing whatever I choose to do, all thanks to you. And I still get to put villains away.”
He pauses. Sighs: the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Thing is Owen, I’ve still got a job to do. I’m still a copper. I’ve still got baddies to catch and crimes to solve. I do that well, you know. I may put the boot in, but I do catch people who need to be caught. Famous for it, when all is said and done. That’s why this week has been so very hard. The Butterworth case. The Chocolate Boy, as you lot call him. An evil fucking sadist kills an angel in her wedding dress and cuts her head off so he can fuck her better. No real grey areas, there, son. Not much middle ground. Kind of case you lot like. Kind of case that needs a good strong conviction. That’s what I need too. 100 per cent clean-up rate, Owen. 100 per cent! I’m proud of that. This documentary, Owen, in which you are going to play such a part, will set me in stone, son. Life for Cadbury, justice for the Butterworths, all thanks to me. He was what? Hunting a double murderer at the same time? Fuck. Who wouldn’t watch that? I’m going to be up in lights, lad, for doing my job and doing it with style. I’ll be a superhero, son. Trouble is, Owen, that if I don’t get the conviction I need, I’m snookered. And truth be told, I’m worried. This witness of Choudhury’s, this fucking cell-mate. That’s strong evidence. It’s a worry. I couldn’t get to him, you see. He was inside, and Choudhury had him sewn up like a duck’s arse. By the time he appeared on the scene, I’d already charged Cadbury. I’ve been trying to iron it out ever since.
