Deadland

by William Shaw

  ‘Thing is, I think Abir Stein’s gone missing.’

  ‘Oh.’ Another pull on the cigarette. ‘That is interesting.’

  ‘Did you ever get the idea he could be in over his head on something?’

  ‘In that kind of world, anything is possible. Have you got a look at his bank statements?’

  ‘I’m getting them. I’m looking for someone who can make sense of them. My boss will want someone from our force, but . . . is there anyone you’d recommend?’

  ‘Yes. I know the exact person.’

  ‘You?’

  A laugh. ‘It’s what I did on the unit, chase all those little numbers. I find them much prettier than all the pictures, to be honest.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Trouble is, my boss is kind of obsessed by numbers too.’

  ‘Aren’t they all? Send it along though. I would love to do some of that stuff again. I’ll do what I can. Just between you and me. Can’t promise anything.’

  She thanked him.

  ‘Something else,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a name. George Gilchrist. They were friends. Close friends. He’s an art dealer. Old-school guy. Talk to him.’

  Afterwards, she locked herself in a cubicle in the bathroom and lifted her shirt. Around the scratches on her stomach, her skin was yellowing from the bruises. Colleagues had made assumptions about this case; that it had been something frivolous, something that was beneath their talents. At least she was sure, now, that she had been right all along. This was something dangerous, dark, and much bigger than an arm in a jar.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Cupidi sat watching the late news, got up, peered through the window, sat down again, tried to listen to a discussion about gross domestic product, gave up, and went upstairs to knock on her daughter’s door.

  Her daughter was in bed, playing on her phone. Cupidi sat down on the bed and ran her hand through her daughter’s short hair as she focused on the game. Eventually Zoë gave up, put the device down.

  ‘What did you do today?’

  Zoë shrugged. ‘Not much.’

  ‘It’s spring. Isn’t this when you get all excited about the new birds coming over?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  Cupidi looked at her daughter, puzzled. There was so much she didn’t understand about the girl. ‘Wasn’t it this time last year you were all giddy about the poopoo?’

  ‘Hoopoe,’ huffed Zoë, pulling her mother’s hand off her head.

  ‘I knew that.’

  ‘I don’t feel like it, that’s all.’

  Every time she thought she had begun to understand her own daughter, Zoë seemed to elude her. Birds had been the one thing in her life that seemed to make her daughter genuinely happy.

  Cupidi shuffled closer to her daughter; as she leaned against her arm, Zoë flinched.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Cupidi reached out to touch her. Her daughter pulled back.

  ‘Have you hurt your arm?’

  ‘No.’

  She put her hand on the sleeve of her daughter’s shirt. Zoë pulled away. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘You’ll go mad,’ Zoë said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum. Nothing at all.’ Angrily she pulled her shirt over her head. ‘That’s all.’

  Cupidi stared at the fresh tattoo on her daughter’s arm, red skin raised around dark blue ink.

  ‘You’re seventeen. That’s not legal.’

  ‘I was wondering how you’d react,’ said Zoë. ‘Typically, you’re seeing this as a law-and-order issue first of all.’

  That’s why she had been wearing a jacket indoors last night. ‘Who did this?’

  Zoë pulled her shirt back down. ‘Why would I tell you? You’d only go and arrest him.’

  ‘I would. You’re right. There are perfectly rational reasons why you’re not allowed to tattoo seventeen-year-olds. Is it infected?’

  ‘No. It’s fine. Just a bit sore.’

  She had never imagined it, her daughter wanting a tattoo. ‘Oh, Zoë. I wish . . . I wish . . . you’d talked to me about it.’

  ‘You’d have only tried to stop me.’

  ‘Of course I would.’ How much other stuff was Zoë doing these days that she didn’t want to talk to her mother about because she knew her mother wouldn’t approve? ‘What if . . . when you’re older . . .’

  ‘What if I change my mind?’

  Stupid question, Cupidi chided herself, feeling an unexpected kind of grief. Her daughter’s perfect body, that she had given birth to, raised, fed, kept warm, tucked in at night, was no longer hers at all. Her daughter had claimed ownership of it.

  ‘What is it, anyway?’

  A circle with arrows through the middle.

  ‘Just a tattoo, that’s all. You can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘I know I can’t.’ Cupidi paused, closed her eyes, opened them again. ‘I was just wondering if I should get one too.’

  Zoë laughed. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it?’ She pulled up the sleeve of her T-shirt. ‘I think it could look pretty good.’

  Zoë’s laughter was less certain now. ’You’re just trying to put me off having another one, aren’t you?’ She reached out to hug her mother. This time it was Cupidi who winced.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My own tattoo.’ She lifted her shirt and showed the grazes on her stomach. New colours were emerging beneath her skin.

  Zoë’s mouth fell open. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Just stupid work stuff.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘You should see the other guy.’

  Unfortunately she hadn’t seen the other guy at all.

  They sat on the bed, holding each other for a couple of minutes. Then Zoë picked up her phone again and it seemed there was no more to be said.

  *

  Downstairs, she called the number given to her by Devon King.

  ‘Good evening. George Gilchrist here.’ The voice was elderly, very English, distinctly patrician.

  Cupidi explained who she was, that she was looking for any information about Abir Stein.

  ‘Oh God. Have you found him?’

  Cupidi was surprised by his reaction. ‘Why do you say “found him”?’

  ‘Well, he’s just disappeared, hasn’t he? I haven’t heard a snippet from him in weeks.’

  Gilchrist was an art dealer. ‘Retired,’ explained Gilchrist. ‘I just keep my hand in here and there. Stein was my protégé. A wonderful young man. Absolutely brilliant radar for new work. Furniture, painting, sculpture. He has such an eye. The pupil surpasses the master.’

  ‘If you think he’s disappeared, can you think of any reason why?’

  ‘Oh please. We handle valuable objects. I heard about a book collector recently who was killed for owning an original edition of Wind in the Willows. Wasn’t that awful?’

  ‘You think he might have been killed because of an artwork he handled?’

  ‘The kind of people we deal with say they are interested in art. I’ve always said most of them are just interested in money.’

  Zoë started playing music upstairs. Cupidi closed the living-room door to shut out the noise. ‘Had he seemed worried about anything recently?’

  ‘That’s the thing. These last two or three years he definitely aged. Something was eating away at him, but whenever I asked about it he just changed the subject. Started talking about the latest absurdity at Miami Art Basel or something. Abir was always very controlled. He hated the idea that anybody might not see him doing well, but I was sure there was something wrong. I asked him all the time. Whether it was his health or his business I never knew. He was the kind of man you never saw drunk, if you know what I mean?’

  ‘Not a copper, then.’

  Gilchrist laughed. ‘But I’m serious. Half an hour in his company and you could end up loving any piece of work he talked about. He was so enthusiastic and knowledgeable. And entirely self-taught
when I met him, too. Of course, I hope I added to his knowledge but really, most of it was there when I first met him. Immigrant parents. He was full of ambition.’

  ‘You said most of the people you deal with are interested in money. Did that apply to Mr Stein?’

  ‘Of course it did. To a degree. He came from nothing, you know. Absolutely nothing. His father was a taxi driver. But he hid it rather well, I think.’

  *

  Downstairs, Cupidi looked up on her computer the symbol she had seen on her daughter’s arm. A circle with three arrows in it.

  It was a political symbol from the 1930s, created by Germans militantly opposed to Nazism and Communism. More recently it had been adopted by anti-fascist protest groups.

  Her daughter was a passionate girl. She had always liked that. It reminded her of herself at that age, of her mother even more. When Zoë had been detained in London at the anti-fascist demonstration last year, Cupidi had tried to talk to her daughter about politics. Her daughter had just shouted at her. ‘You wouldn’t understand. You’re a police officer. Your job is to maintain the status quo. I hate the status quo.’

  Cupidi switched off her computer, put her head in her hands. It had been a long day. She should go to bed. Light still shone from under her daughter’s door. In her own bedroom, she lifted her shirt up and stared at herself in the mirror for a minute. The bruises seemed to be darkening as she looked at them. Then she turned to the window, looking over the hump of shingle to William South’s bungalow bathed in nuclear electric light.

  She pulled the shirt back down again, reached in the cupboard and took out a woollen jumper.

  *

  Arum Cottage, alone on the stones, apart from all the other houses.

  There was still a light on somewhere in the shack’s living room. She knocked on the door. ‘It’s me, Bill,’ she said.

  Silence. The nuclear power station was venting hot air. It sounded like a distant kettle boiling.

  ‘I’m not going till you answer the door.’

  When he finally opened, she could smell the whisky on his breath, even a pace away.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something, Bill.’

  He swayed slightly. ‘What?’

  ‘Some rich people called the Millers have a place down here. You were the community copper. Do you know which one it is?’

  ‘Was the community copper,’ he said.

  Cupidi waited, standing in the dim pool of light from his shack. ‘Please, Bill. Less of the self-pity. It’s a murder case.’

  ‘Your favourites.’

  ‘Don’t, Bill. It’s important, that’s all I mean.’

  It had been a murder case when they had first met; an investigation which ended with one murderer dead, and William South going to prison for something he’d done a long time ago.

  He stood, looking at her for a long time.

  ‘And I’m worried about Zoë,’ she said finally.

  He grunted. ‘When weren’t you?’

  ‘Maybe you could take her birdwatching again, like you used to?’

  ‘That was when she was a girl. She’s grown out of that now.’

  ‘It would do you good, too. You’re cooped up in this place, on your own.’

  ‘I kind of got used to being cooped up,’ he said.

  She wanted to sit with him and talk to him about Zoë, and how she worried she’d become caught up in activism, but he hadn’t invited her in. ‘Let us know if you need anything, Bill, will you? I’m worried about you, that’s all.’

  ‘If I show you the house, will you stop worrying?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Reaching behind the door, he grabbed a donkey jacket. He didn’t bother to lock his door, walking ahead of her towards the beach.

  ‘Do you have a torch?’

  ‘Never carry one. In a place like this, torches don’t help you.’

  She thought about what he meant and realised it was true. When it was dark everywhere, torches only showed what was in their beam and made the darkness thicker.

  The oldest houses on the beach were a row of Victorian railway carriages, lined up on the shingle by the old quarry workers. At the head of the line had been an old First Class coach, to which other structures had been tacked on like barnacles on a rock. An artist lived there, selling canvases to the tourists who came in the summer and at weekends. To the north, a few of the other original carriages remained. Through neglect or misfortune, some had disappeared and been replaced by other ramshackle structures. At both ends of the line, and on the empty space behind the track that led to the lighthouses, others had added new makeshift buildings.

  In recent years, the rich had bought them, one by one. Some had been lovingly restored, some given to architects to reimagine. One entire carriage had been preserved inside a new modernist rectangle made of wood and glass. The results appeared in glossy magazines. But the Millers’ cabin was not one of them. It turned out to be one of the least conspicuous, one Cupidi had barely noticed before, an old carriage that had been rebuilt over time, extended by wooden additions on all sides.

  ‘She’s had it for years. They’re never there.’

  They walked towards the building.

  ‘Though this is new,’ he said, pointing to a tiny outhouse tacked onto the side. ‘So they must have been around. I don’t remember seeing her here for years though.’

  A wind was blowing at the wave crests, making pale lines in the darkness.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back though,’ Cupidi said.

  ‘And I’m showing you which house the Millers live in,’ he said.

  She turned towards him. ‘Don’t indulge yourself thinking that I feel guilty. I don’t. I was doing my job, that’s all. I did what I had to do.’

  He turned his back on her and seemed to be about to head back home when he stopped. ‘Look,’ he said.

  She didn’t realise what he was saying at first because it was hard to see. From behind heavy drawn curtains that covered the seaward windows, a thin strip of light seeped out. Someone was in the Millers’ cabin.

  *

  The front door was at the rear of the building, facing the road. William South standing behind her, she pressed the button on an intercom and heard a buzzing from within the wooden house. From here, the house looked completely dark.

  She listened for footsteps.

  Nobody came to answer the door.

  ‘It’s late,’ said South. ‘Only an idiot would open a door to you, this time of night.’

  Undeterred, Cupidi pressed the button a second time.

  After a short wait, she walked back round, to the seaward side of the house. The glow that had crept through the gap between curtain and floor was no longer showing.

  Had it just been a security light, on a timer? There was no car parked outside the building, so if someone was in there, how had they got there?

  South was still waiting at the front of the bungalow when she returned.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I think someone’s in there. They’re just ignoring me.’

  ‘Don’t blame them,’ said South.

  Cupidi laughed. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  He turned and headed back towards Arum Cottage. She followed, a few paces behind. When he reached his porch she paused, waiting for him to turn so she could thank him, but he simply opened the door and went straight inside.

  As she stood, wondering whether to knock on the door again, the brief silhouette of a bat passed the light. Then a second.

  Then the bulb was turned off. So she headed back home.

  Zoë’s room was dark. Cupidi lay in bed, thinking, her bedroom window wide open, listening to crickets, owls and the distant crunch of the waves.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Cupidi knocked on her daughter’s door before leaving the house the next morning.

  On the other side of the door, Zoë groaned. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m about to leave for work. Can I come in?’

  She opened the do
or. Zoë’s head was peeping out from under a single sheet. For a teenager, she kept her room surprisingly neat. There were still her careful drawings of birds everywhere round the walls, paper a little yellow now, her clothes on the chair, neatly folded. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard of a group called England Rising?’

  Zoë sat up a little more, suspicious. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  ‘Because of your tattoo.’

  Zoë rolled her eyes. ‘I bet you looked the symbol up, didn’t you?’

  Cupidi sat down on her daughter’s bed. ‘Obviously if I’m going to get one the same, I need to know what it means.’

  ‘You’re not even funny, Mum.’

  ‘So I figure you’ll know about neo-Nazi groups. What about England Rising?’

  ‘They’re not funny either,’ said Zoë.

  ‘Do you know anything about them?’

  Zoë sat up in her bed. ‘Are you involved in that case on the news? About the guy being stabbed?’

  ‘It was on the news?’

  Zoë was suddenly more interested. ‘All over Facebook, Snapchat and everything. There’s sick people saying “Good for them”, because the police do nothing about paedophiles. Did they do it?’

  ‘Do you know about them?’

  ‘You want to know?’

  ‘I do. Yes.’

  ‘They’re another front group for National Action, that’s what people say. When the government banned them after that MP got stabbed, all these other groups suddenly appeared, like Scottish Dawn, NS131 and England Rising, saying the same old poison. England Rising have been posting a lot of nasty stuff online in the last few months. Either they’re copying National Action or they’re basically the same people. Things like this are great for them. They want to be seen as champions of the people. Other neo-Nazis have done it in America, posted videos on humiliating gay people and calling people child abusers.’