“I saw you die” I said. “I saw you. They cut your head off. I saw your eyes go out.”
“You know,” he said, “some things we just can’t explain. I’m not like you, though. I don’t have any power. I’m just me, but I’m on my own.”
“I’m sorry” I said.
“I said I didn’t blame you.”
For the first time, I turned to look at him, and then maybe I understood a little bit more. His eyes, the eyes, were completely black, the lights hadn’t come back on. I swallowed, took another sip, and then I managed to hold his gaze. I think that the tiny smile on his lips meant that he had understood.
“I’m not sorry for that” I replied. “I’m sorry, because when I saw you die, I was glad.”
“You’ve changed, haven’t you? I’ve changed too. I don’t think that anyone who comes out of there doesn’t change.”
“Of course I’ve changed” I said, “I have superhuman strength.”
“That’s not what I mean” he replied. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
And he’s right of course. Somehow, like a strangling birth there’s something growing inside me, something unfamiliar and unreal, but still it’s there and I can’t deny it.
Like some relief, the barman switched on music, dark, thumping beats in the background as we stared at each other for a second.
And that’s where we find ourselves now, between the man, or men, or women, that betrayed us. And over a bottle of the best whisky that that dive bar offered, we agree at last.
Chapter 41
This isn’t the end, not at all, of course it’s not.
Me and my mate Stephen, we’re sitting down, outside, on a bridge, somewhere in the city, our legs dangling over the side. From time to time I can bring myself to look over the edge and see what’s below, or see how far down it is, before I have to look away. The wind is cold and hard, and we have to fight against it to stay where we are.
“This one” shouts Stephen, “is for Ian. My friend, my comrade.” He takes the next empty bottle and hurtles it downwards. We wait, attentively, there’s a scream, and Stephen yelps with joy. “Direct hit!”
“This one” I shout, “is for the vampire that killed Ian – Detective Morrell, I’m sorry. You have to realise that it wasn’t his fault, and, let’s face it, he suffered too.” I drain the rest of the bottle and let it go, the we wait, and we wait. Nothing. “Ha!” shouts Stephen, “that’s 15-10 to me!”
“No way!” I’m saying, “14-12, and I’ve been up all night, you fell asleep, and in face I had to rescue you from slipping off the bridge, which must at least count for two bonus points. If I’m not mistaken, that makes us even.”
“What the hell are you doing?” the ferocity of the voice behind us makes us both turn, and I just manage to catch Stephen as he slips. Two days without sleep, I’m rubbing my eyes as I get to my feet to try and take in what I’m seeing, some large guy in a black uniform. Stephen’s standing beside me, he’s muttering “fuck” under his breath, I’m not sure why.
Shaking my head I say “can I help you, my good man?” did that sound right, no, no, maybe not.
“Yeah”, he replies, “yeah, you can help me, you can put these on for a start, and then you can come with me.” Suddenly there are three of them there, stepping out of the early morning mist like ghosts, they’re surrounding us and I feel something being attached to my wrists, Stephen’s whispering “just go with it, don’t resist” and of course I’m doing just that, my head’s swimming so much that I wouldn’t even know what to resist.
The car’s going too fast and we’re being knocked about in the back of it, I’m feeling sick but I can’t do anything to calm myself down, my hands are bound together with impressively mean looking handcuffs, I really want to be able to put my hands to my face and stop the shaking, being sick over the policeman next to me would just make things worse, I am sure, but I’m not sure there’s much I can do to stop…. Ooops
I can still feel pain, though now it’s become dull, edgy, something around the side of my consciousness. The third time, now, that I pick myself up from the floor and wipe the blood from my face, not my blood, but that of the policeman, rage in his face and his voice and he can’t do anything to make me stay down. I’m wiping the sweat from my eyes and checking him out, he’s a comical site, stripped down to his underwear, white baggy y-fronts and a string vest that just covers his huge belly, his sick stained clothes lying next to him, nothing else to change into. He’s pulling his fists back up to start again, his bloody and broken hands from where he’s tried to break me but he can’t. And I know it’s going to make things worse, but that scowl and that look just make me start laughing, and as he snarls his threats to me I know that they are empty and so I just laugh some more until the door slides open silently and someone else walks in.
This is someone more serious, I can tell straight away, and underwear man pulls himself upright, with some effort, and wipes his bloody hands on his vest. The man, tall and lean, looks at underwear man with a look of undisguised disgust, and says “get out of here” in a low, direct voice.
“Yes, yes of course sir” mumbles underwear man, hurriedly pulling his uniform back on, smearing sick on his hands and face, giving me one last, mean look before he disappears.
The new man turns to face me, sitting at one of the chairs. “Get up” he says.
“I quite like it down here”.
He shrugs, and says “I was going to offer you a drink.”
I’m up quickly and we’re sitting at the white table, sipping whisky. Again.
He stares at me, I notice the blueness of his eyes, deathly pale. “So” he muses, “I’m surprised how well you look, after your little sojourn with Tommy there.”
“His name was Tommy?”
“You look surprised?”
“Well,” I say, “he just didn’t look like a Tommy. Can I have another drink, please?”
“Of course,” he smiles, and pours me a very large drink. “I’m Detective Martin Noals.” He offers me a cigarette, too, which I take gratefully.
As I start to smoke, I ask “is police brutality back in fashion, then, Detective Noals?”
He sighs. “Well, you did provoke him, you have to admit. I mean, his uniform was ruined.”
“What can I say?”
He laughs. “Anyway, let’s get to the point. You and your friend are in quite a lot of trouble.”
“You have no idea” and I laugh.
He pauses for a second. “I mean”, he says, “with us. You’re in trouble with us.”
“Really?” I ask, bemused.
“Really. That little game that you played, throwing bottles onto the street below, caused quite a lot of mayhem. Quite serious mayhem, in fact.” I really think his eyes are getting paler as he’s talking to me.
“Whoops” I smile, “sorry about that.”
He’s not smiling though. “Two people are dead” his face is deadly serious and I really think he means it. And now I really feel something that I wasn’t expecting, like a pit opening in my stomach, like a feeling that something is wrong, like the world before me goes blank, no, not blank, dark, in front of me for a second, like I’m looking into a tunnel and I can’t see the exit, and it’s like the world is shivering and crying. But the really shocking thing is that it’s not me, it’s not for me that I feel this, but I feel bad about the fact that something has happened to someone else. I’m really sure it’s that, and I don’t really know how to handle it.
“Shit” my voice comes out low and drawn. “Sorry”. I can’t, suddenly, bring myself to look at him. I’m about to pick up my glass and drain my whisky, then I put it down again, the thought of it’s taste makes me sick. I stub out my cigarette.
“You’re going to jail” he whispers, “you know that.”
I don’t look up.
“You’re going to spend the rest of your life in jail.”
“Can I make a phone call?” I a
sk.
***
Get yourself together. Ring ring. Come on, it’s happened, there’s nothing you can do. Ring ring. Why are you worried, you’ve never cared before. Ring. Come on, pull yourself together, there’s…
“Yes”
“Simon?”
A pause. “John. What do you want?”
“I’m in a police station.”
“I’m listening.”
“I murdered someone by accident.”
There’s another pause, I’m not sure but I think I hear a slight chuckle on the other end of the phone.
“Anyone important?”
I swallow. “I don’t think so.”
“OK. Wait there, don’t say anything. Martin will be with you. Where are you?”
“I have no idea.”
“OK. We’ll find out.” And he hangs up.
I hand the phone back to Detective Noals. He looks at me grimly. “Well?”
“Well” I sigh, “I’ve got a lawyer coming.”
“I see. Will he be representing your friend as well?”
I consider this for a second. “Yes” I reply. And then I say “No, no he won’t.” Detective Noals walks out, without another word, leaving me alone with my unfinished glass, unfinished bottle and half smoked cigarette. And, of course, my thoughts.
There’s a knock on the door a few minutes later. I get up as Martin Jenkins, our lawyer, enters the room, and reaches across to shake my hand. He sits opposite me. “May I?” he asks, I smile, and he gratefully picks up the packet and starts smoking.
I admire his thin, sharp features, perfect, really for a lawyer, in his designer suit, Max Freud I think, black as night, like his eyes and his personality. He leans over to me and talks through a cloud of smoke. “It’s all sorted, John, they understand, it’s not a problem.”
“You mean?” I ask.
“Yes, of course” he smiles, “you’re free to go. What else did you expect?” He lets the question linger in the air for a second before getting up, snappily and smartly and says “Come on, let’s go.”
As we walk towards the door, he touches my arm lightly. “I have to warn you, they are not happy.”
“Who?” I ask.
“The police” Martin replies, in a tone that suggests what an idiotic question.
“Why?” I ask.
He stops me and looks deep in my eyes. “John, you’re responsible for the murder of two people and you’re just walking out, even though they have complete proof, enough to convict you without even breaking a sweat. I tell you, I’d be seething if it were me.”
I find myself sniffing. “I don’t want to go to jail” I say.
“Don’t worry, you’re not going to jail.”
“But…” I start.
“But what, John?” he’s talking slowly, patiently, as if to a slow child. Maybe that’s what I am, slow, slow and spoilt.
“Well, it’s just, look… I want to make it up to them. I didn’t mean it for this to happen.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. “OK, John, listen to me carefully. You and I are walking out of here. We’ll walk through that door, through the corridors, and out of the front onto the street. We’ll get into my chauffeur driven car and drive back to your apartment. Then, if you want and feel it’s important, we’ll talk through if there’s anything we can do for the victims. Almost certainly not, I would say, as it will potentially open us up for civil action where we are not protected and are not willing to sustain the risk. You understand me. It’s either that or you walk back to that desk, sit down and wait until you’re put in jail for the next forty years. You choose, OK?”
“I understand” I reply slowly. “I’ll come with you.” Fortunately, my redemption hasn’t gone too far.
“Good man” he smiles. “Let’s go.”
“There’s just one more thing” I venture.
“Go on” he says, wearily.
“I was here with Stephen…”
“He’ll have to fend for himself. No question. You already told them that, I understand. Well done.”
Oh well, Stephen, at least I tried.
***
As we were walking through the white, featureless corridor of the police station, a door slid silently open just in front of us and someone slipped out. Detective Martin Noals, facing us, those eyes boring into me. To my credit, I looked away, I looked down, but he yanked my face up to his as we reached him, and spat into it.
Chapter 42
Another day, another cocktail, another bar though this one is somehow familiar like some déjà vu, like some dodgy dream. Martin comes back from the bar with something new in his hands, I don’t get what it is, but he’s wearing a huge grin when he sits down.
“OK, listen” he says, “this is sweet.”
“Oh for goodness sake” I reply.
“Excuse me?”
“Well I didn’t order something sweet. I hate sweet things. Send it back and get something not sweet.”
“No, John, you misunderstand me...”
“It isn’t sweet?”
“Erm, well, no, but, but listen, John, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about the fucking cocktail, for god’s sake man, concentrate, this is a big fucking deal.” He talks like a young hotshot lawyer, with a swagger to his speech and lots of swearing thrown in. Well, who can blame him, he’s probably the best paid lawyer in the country.
“Listen, John, just listen for a change, OK, please. That cop, that guy, what’s his name, Noals…”
“The guy who spat in my face?”
“That’s the one. Now listen, we are sorted, we have threatened to sue him, it has gone all the way up, my friend. We are talking police brutality here, and it just won’t do. I mean, it really won’t do. You know, you hear about it all the time, this sort of stuff going on, to be honest I didn’t really believe it up till now, but there it is, I saw it with my own eyes, unbelievable really wasn’t it. He thought, I mean, in this day and age, he thought that he could get away with something like that? It’s quite outrageous really. I mean, for fuck’s sake, the man is clearly out of control, and he needs to pay, I mean, he really needs to pay. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well,” I sip my cocktail, “to be honest…”
“Exactly. So here’s what’s happened. We have talked to the boss, and I mean the boss, you know who I mean of course, and he is quite keen, you know, of course, to avoid scandal, especially after what happened last year. He went ape, I mean really, you haven’t seen anything like it, he was taking no prisoners, he was straight on there and straight into the office, with fuckface Noals and his boss and I tell you, I hear this second hand of course, but I have a very reliable source, I tell you, when Noals came out he was ashen. I mean ashen, my friend, like you’ve never seen, he just walked back to his office, packed his bags and he was gone. He’s out. No pay off, no pension, nothing, and he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t go to jail. I tell you Mark, I mean John, I tell you, this is excellent, this sends out such a clear message. Do not mess with us. I mean, it’s there. It’s out there now. And Noals is paying. Cheers” he finishes, raising his glass.
I shake my head, close my eyes and drink.
And then it’s dark outside and Martin’s gone and I’m alone at the table, staring into my glass. I raise my hand for another drink, then lower it, self consciously, when I realise no one’s coming, or maybe it’s that I don’t actually want a drink, somewhere along the line I forgot which one. I reach into the pocket of my 3 day old jacket, and remove a small brown envelope, with the word “Mark” on the front and a smiley face next to it. My last happy pill, I haven’t touched it for five, maybe six days, I’ve allowed it to lay there, like temptation, like something that draws you in, and yet leave it alone. Every night I take this envelope carefully out of my jacket, and lay it by the side of my bed, just as night falls. I tell myself that if I wake up and the night is screaming at me, it’s there to be had. But every night
I do wake up, I see the night, and it does scream my name, but I can’t do anything about it, I fall into the arms of Sasha, or Sarah, or I get up and walk through the streets. Here it is still, like my line in the sand between that, and this, and I can’t help thinking that that was better.
I inhale my cigarette deeply and look into the smoke.
“Hello stranger, may I join you.”
I look up and can make out Ruth’s hazy outline through the smoke, I nod at her slowly.
I say: “I’m occupying a small corner of my consciousness.”
She says: “What are you talking about, John?”
I say: “Light and dark seem to keep switching.”
She says: “John, you look grey. I am worried about you.”
I say: “I can’t sleep. I’m not sleeping. Everything has become blurred.”
She says: “What’s the matter, John, why are you like this? I miss you, but I don’t know how to talk to you.”
I say: “I’m sorry I hit you.”
She says: “You didn’t hit me. You didn’t even talk to me. I wait for you when you come to the lab every day, I stand in the shadows so that Simon can’t see the look on my face, and I wait for you. But you just glide past and you’re gone. I shout out to you and you don’t reply.”
I say: “I let them down and I need to make amends.”
She says: “Who did you let down, John? You didn’t let me down, you don’t need to worry, I…I’m sorry, John, I really am. I wish we could go back. We could just go, you and I, we could just leave, we could…”
I say: “Stephen’s in jail because of me. And now Martin… he was right to spit at me, I deserved it.”
She doesn’t say anything. She puts her hands over mine and strokes them gently. Without a word the barman puts a full bottle of whisky next to us and leaves. I allow the cigarette to drop from my mouth.
Eventually she says: “So? What do we do?”
I say: “I need to make amends. I need to get Stephen out, and make it up to Martin.”
She says: “Please, John, just leave it.”
“But I can’t. I have to do this. I have to put my fire out.”
She sighs and wipes away tears. “Ok then, “ she whispers, “this woman can help you” and she hands me a card. It reads
999-5142
Falling Page 22
