by David Mark
Does not see the line, repeated, over and over.
‘Blood of my blood, beautiful child, sleeping cica, slumbering angel, my blood, my blood, my blood …’
MOLLY
‘What were you thinking, you silly cow?’
Molly is slamming the heel of her hand into her forehead. It causes the gash above her eye to throb but she is in too much of a temper to pay it any heed.
‘I wasn’t thinking,’ says Lottie, her head dropping. She is breathing heavily, fanning her face with her fingertips. ‘I thought it would be fun. I got carried away …’
Molly isn’t paying any attention. She is kneading her forehead with her fingertips as if it were unbaked bread. ‘Make her feel better, you said. Distract her. Perk her up. I thought you would take her to a toy shop and get a pizza. You’ve had her labelling spleen samples and put her online holding a death mask!’
Lottie looks appalled with herself. She has never been told off by Molly before and is clearly holding back tears.
‘You watched it then,’ says Hilda, brightly. She has been told off by her mum plenty of times and knows that this is the worst it will get. She is sitting at the end of the bar, using an orange felt-tip pen to illustrate a black-and-white wizard in her colouring book. She has been better since she got home. Ate a bowl of Irish stew with soda bread then road-tested the chef’s peach and pineapple crumble and custard. The colour is back in her face. That is one relief. Had Molly been here when Lottie brought Hilda back, she would have presumed the child’s features were already eclipsed beneath the mask that had so upset her.
‘Yes, I watched it,’ snaps Molly. She is wearing a short fur cape around her bare shoulders and her red lace top is tucked into a high-waisted pleated skirt. With a tricorn hat and a cutlass she would look like a pirate.
‘Did I look OK?’ asks Hilda. ‘Before I got upset, I mean? Just Sienna at school, she always watches Lottie’s programme and I don’t want to have had a bogey or something in my teeth …’
Molly cannot help herself. The smile takes over her whole face and a moment later she gives Lottie an exasperated look. ‘I’m supposed to be the hopeless one. You’ve got a degree. You’re clever. I’m a numpty from Scunthorpe.’
‘I’m a numpty from Reading,’ says Lottie, giving a little gasp of relief. She had expected a much worse telling-off.
Molly takes a breath and decides to finish the remonstration with a few salient points. ‘You put her online, Lottie. Without asking! Remember that thing we talked about? The situation, as we shall refer to it. The family ties that are so complicated you’d get a migraine just trying to work out who’s related to who. And now there’s a video of her in a pathology museum. Holding a haemorrhoid in a jar!’ The absurdity of the sentence undoes the last of Molly’s resolve and she creases into laughter. ‘How can I have given her a life where it’s possible to say a sentence like that!’
‘She was really helpful with the specimens,’ says Lottie, laughing too.
‘I bet. You’re bringing out the weird in her. I can see her now, going to parties when she’s a teenager, sitting in the corner holding her samples. A tongue in a matchbox, maybe, or a liver, sitting in her hands like a frog. She’s going to be quite the catch when it’s boyfriend time.’
‘The weirdos always become the sexy ones, in time,’ says Lottie. ‘Look at you.’
‘I’m not weird.’
‘Weird is a side-effect of awesome,’ says Hilda, looking up. ‘I was fine until I thought about Meda. I just got upset.’
Molly looks at her daughter and her face softens. She wants to make this all better. Something ugly seems to have drifted into their lives. She has witnessed blood and threats and violence and has felt these past two days as though the cold fingers of something sinister are tickling her skin. She feels at once energized and despairing. She has fought hard to keep such feelings contained since coming to London. Her nightmares have become tolerable and the things that she sees in her dark moments have become less real; more cartoonish; less visceral. But she is feeling the familiar sensation of mounting mania. There is a hyperactive quality to her thoughts, her actions. She is buzzing. Wired. She has a bizarre but overpowering desire to jump through the front window and sprint down the street. She wants to do something chaotic and remarkable. Were she in a car she would not trust herself to stop at red lights. She wants to stretch her limbs beyond comfort. She feels as though her blood is all flame and fizz and has a horrible suspicion that when the crash comes, she will descend into a sadness from which she will not know how to emerge. She keeps waiting to hear that a body has been found. The body of a girl. A girl who could have been saved if friends had only reported their suspicions sooner …
Lottie leans forward in her seat. Lowers her voice, conspiratorially. ‘It was straight back here, was it? After Karol had the bust-up. No pulling into a layby for a bit of hide-the-ghoulash?’
‘He had a dislocated elbow and we were both bleeding,’ says Molly, sticking out her tongue.
‘Sounds perfect. Sex is a great painkiller.’
‘You know what else is a good painkiller? A painkiller. I took three of them and went to bed after you patched me up.’
‘So you haven’t seen him since?’
‘No. I don’t know why you think I would have done.’
Lottie sips her Belgian beer and Molly searches her face for further accusation or disbelief. She does not even remember Karol leaving. She has spent much of today waiting for her phone to ring and looking up, startled, each time the door has swung open. She has heard nothing from him. All day she has thought about whether or not to call the police and report her suspicions and every time she has resisted for fear that it would cause problems for the surly Lithuanian. She cannot understand herself. Were she told of the exact circumstances affecting somebody else, she would think ill of anybody who declined to contact the authorities. But she feels as though she is within this storm and is horribly aware of how different it feels to be carried by the hurricane rather than stand and watch.
‘Do you think it will be a problem?’ asks Lottie, brooding. She is tearing a beer mat into the shape of a human heart. ‘Leaving the show like that … walking out when there were people watching.’
Molly starts rearranging the glasses on the shelf, all bustling energy and needless activity. She is feeling snappy. She tries not to let her face give away her lack of enthusiasm for Lottie’s current woes.
‘It’s your own programme,’ says Molly. ‘You made it. You run it. There’s no boss or backer to worry about so the only person who could be pissed off with you is yourself, and unless you’re going to give yourself a verbal warning, I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘But it’s unprofessional. I don’t want word getting around that I’m flighty or something.’
‘You went to see if a little girl was OK. That’s the right thing to do.’
‘I’m not a little girl,’ says Hilda, looking up. ‘Lottie, your phone’s ringing.’
Lottie plucks her phone from her bra and looks at the screen. Her eyes light up and she nods at Molly who instantly raises a hand to her face. It’s warm and cosy in the back room but Molly still feels a chill down her back. She seems too tall for her skin, somehow, as though her skeleton is being squashed. She feels like a foot pressed into too-tight shoes. She feels bound. Her corset is suddenly rope; her chest constricting as she imagines the bones in her bodice slowly closing in. In her mind, her clothes become the gullet of a huge snake. She feels as though she is being digested. She reaches out to grab for the bar and sees Hilda moving to her side, face full of concern.
‘Have you had your pill, Mum?’ she asks, quietly, and she puts an arm around Molly’s waist. ‘Are you OK? Do you need me to get anything?’
A surge of emotion fills Molly as she looks into her daughter’s wide, earnest eyes. She hates herself for cheapening her daughter’s childhood with her selfish problems. No child should know of depression. No child should know
that their mother takes medication to control their hyperactivity and hallucinations. She has always tried to be completely honest with her daughter but there are times she regrets it. Hilda knows about the times her mother has spent in hospital, mending her fractured mind and soul. She talks about her mum’s issues as if they are any other illness – says that she is ‘just poorly’. But Molly remains beset by a sense of guilt and shame and wants to claw great welts in her own wrists every time she thinks about the impact her occasional disorders have upon those who love her.
‘It’s OK, I’m just a bit funny in the head,’ says Molly weakly. She blinks, hard. There is a smell of blood in her nostrils and her fingernails are digging into her palm. She cannot stop the strobing, flickering images that are melding with the scene in front of her in a dizzying spectroscope of grisly pictures. She is back in the interview room, watching the blood pour from a killer’s scalp. She is answering the phone to her mother and folding in upon herself at the sound of her accusations and tears. She is lolling, rubbery and naked, in six inches of tepid water and spilled vodka as her child cries and bangs upon the bathroom door. She is watching the imposters beat upon Karol with the tyre iron and blinking blood from her eyes. She is watching Meda struggle for air beneath a mask of loose earth …
‘No!’ gasps Molly, and raises a hand to her face as though there are birds attacking her eyes.
‘Mum, it’s OK. Ssh, Mum, don’t …’
Molly has screwed up her eyes and wrapped her arms around her head. She is suddenly childlike in her movements.
‘Darling, what’s wrong? Please, Molly, don’t get sad. Should we get you sat down maybe? Tell me what to do.’
Molly hears Lottie’s voice close to her left ear and the nearness of her makes her shudder. She sees herself as a hedgehog, folding in on herself, all prickles and vulnerable fleshy parts, and the vision suddenly becomes comical. Her gasping breath becomes a giggle and she opens her tear-filled eyes to stare into the worried expressions of her daughter and best friend.
‘Mum?’
Molly feels exhausted. She could drop her head to the bar and sleep for days. She suddenly craves sunlight. Her skin feels clammy and pale, as though she has been living underground. She wonders how long it has been since she felt real light upon her skin. She feels as though the miasma of London’s complicated air is somehow clothing her skin and blocking her pores. She feels like she is suffocating. Suffocating like the child whose pain suddenly feels colossal and real inside her chest.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ says Molly, half to herself. ‘I’m fine. Honestly, I’m fine.’ She holds her elbows in to her waist, trying to make herself small. She doesn’t want anybody touching her. She needs space to breathe.
‘Should we go home, Mum?’
‘No, no, it’s fine. I’m fine.’ She takes the glass of water that Hilda has fetched and takes three deep gulps. Goose pimples immediately rise upon her skin.
‘What happened?’ asks Lottie, quietly. ‘I was on the phone and the next thing you were staring at nothing and acting like you were watching a horror movie. Did you take your pills?’
Molly flashes her friend an angry glance. ‘They’re not magic bloody pills, you know. They’re not miracle workers. Sometimes I still get a bit overwhelmed, that’s all. And this is all a bit overwhelming. What’s that thing Alice says in Wonderland? I felt like I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a lot since then. I thought I was on top of things.’ She stops, jerking her head away from Lottie as if trying to slip a noose. ‘I am fine. It’s just all squeezing my brain.’
‘We should stop,’ says Lottie. ‘Looking into it all, I mean.’
‘We’re not looking into anything,’ says Molly, waving a hand. ‘What are we doing? Just getting in a mess and upsetting ourselves. We’re witnesses to something that might not have happened. I wish I’d never met the bloody family. I wish I didn’t care. Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I’m just a nosey cow who sees a chance for a bit of drama.’
The three of them stay silent for a time. Lottie starts picking at the skin around her fingernail. Hilda has picked up the cardboard heart Lottie had been playing with while on the phone.
‘What’s occipital?’ asks Hilda, reading the blue ink on the ragged beermat.
Lottie reaches out and takes her makeshift notepad, shaking her head. ‘Not now, eh?’
‘You may as well just tell us,’ says Molly, shrugging. ‘That was your mate, I presume. The one who did the exam?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think it will help …’
‘Maybe it won’t, but I still want to know.’
Lottie looks from mother to daughter. They look suddenly very similar; big eyes and full lips and a solemnity in the way they hold themselves and each other.
‘Throat cut,’ says Lottie, looking down at the cardboard heart. ‘Left to right. My colleague got the basics from the investigating officer, and the water has definitely taken most of his secrets. He was very bloated. But victim was a Benjamin Kinnealy. Thirty-seven years old. State of poor health and evidence of sustained substance abuse. Had been living rough for some years after being released from HMP Belmarsh where he had served time for benefits fraud and supplying amphetamine. Had drunk a large quantity of strong cider and eaten some packet chicken and tinned rice pudding in the hours before his death. Blood alcohol showed he was extremely intoxicated, though whether that would have shown in his manner is anybody’s guess. Historic bruises on his elbows and knees. Recent injury to left occipital bone. The throat was cut so deeply there was little more than a flap of skin holding it in place. Virtually no blood in the body …’
‘No more,’ says Molly, shaking her head and looking at Hilda.
‘Meda said he was a nice man. His dog was friendly. She brought him food …’
‘Have they dredged the canal?’ asks Molly, quickly. ‘Why was he down there? Doesn’t he sleep in the doorway of the bank? Isn’t that why she called him Banky?’
‘He’s just the pathologist,’ says Lottie, wishing she could offer more help. ‘Tell me where your thoughts are, Molly.’
Molly clears her throat and feels a pain in her chest. It seems that the air is pressing in upon her. She is aware of the history of this place. Aware of all the suffering that the ground beneath her feet has witnessed. Is suddenly aware how much blood has seeped into the earth in this swathe of East London. Feels a sudden rush of revulsion at being a part of the ghoulish industry that has glorified such acts of violence. She forces herself to take control of her own thoughts. Tries to make it clear in her own mind. What does she believe? What does she fear?
‘I don’t think somebody has taken Meda as part of a ransom,’ says Molly, quietly. ‘I don’t think they want money for her safe return. Karol’s people have made an assumption because that’s what has happened before. But what if the cases where the victim has ended up dead were committed by somebody else? There are people out there who will use any opportunity to make money. Look at last night. Those bastards said they had Meda because they’d heard she was missing and they saw a chance to cash in. They didn’t care about anything else. How many times might that have happened? What if children have been going missing for years and nobody has been reporting it because they all think it’s something else – something financial, a concept people can get their heads around. And that’s been allowing something to occur which is so very much worse.’
‘Like a very bad man?’ asks Hilda, and she seems to get a little smaller as she says it.
‘You’ve got no basis for that thought,’ says Lottie, gently. ‘That’s just an irrational fear, and with what you’ve been through, that’s hardly surprising …’
‘Meda bought a tin of tuna for the homeless man’s dog,’ says Molly, ignoring the interruption. ‘That means she must have seen him on her way to the shops. So she bought the animal a treat while there and went back to give it to him. She wasn’t seen after that. The homeless man is found dead in the canal with his throat cu
t. Don’t you think that maybe somebody planned this? Took Banky’s place in the doorway? I can almost see it. Meda, all happy with herself, going to do a kind thing for the nice man in the doorway. He would have been in his sleeping bag, keeping warm. She tries to get his attention, in that dark doorway, and then …’ She stops, closing her eyes.
‘But Molly, that’s just paranoia and darkness.’ Lottie is shaking her head, looking confused. ‘A bad thing has happened to a poor homeless man and that’s awful. A girl has gone missing and that’s awful too. But what you’re saying is just some bleak imagining. There’s nothing else to suggest that and, even if by some chance you were right, what would you do about it?’
‘You’ve got police contacts,’ says Molly, chewing her lip and thinking. ‘The officer investigating Banky’s death. He would be the logical one to speak to.’
‘About Meda? But I thought you couldn’t talk about Meda. Karol’s orders.’
Molly gives a low growl. She wants a drink. Wants to fill herself with gin. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she says, and it sounds pitiful to her own ears.
‘We should tell,’ says Hilda, softly. ‘Tell the police.’
Molly nods. She has known it since she started talking. She reaches under the bar for her phone. Three missed calls and a multi-media message. She gives a sharp intake of breath and feels the floor tilt beneath her boots as she opens the video clip that has been sent from a number she does not recognize.
A figure hangs from a hook in a dark, poorly lit and featureless room. He has been stripped down to his pale, flabby skin. His head rests upon his chest. Blood drips from his bare toes. A man in clear plastic overalls is standing behind him, holding a coiled hose in gloved hands. Without speaking, the man in the overalls points the hose at the hanging figure and water gushes out to soak the man’s back. Steam rises. The man’s head snaps up as the scalding liquid scorches his flesh. The video contains no sound, but there is no disguising the scream of agony that emerges from the victim’s open mouth as his skin begins to blister and pop like burning jam.
