The Cutting Room

by Ashley Dyer

  “’Course you do.” His eyes were all over her.

  She blinked, raising one shoulder in a gesture of helpless confusion.

  “Damien, my eldest,” he said. “You seen to it justice was done.”

  Her heart suddenly slowed to a hard, painful thudding. He’s guessing, trying to get you to open up by bluffing that he knows more than he does. Even so, she had to summon up years of experience in facing down criminals and police senior ranks to keep her expression blank and her voice even.

  “Damien Ryan,” she said. “I remember the case. But that was a long time ago—I wasn’t even police back then.”

  “I know.” He blinked slowly. “But CSIs are the unsung heroes of the criminal justice system, aren’t they?”

  Jesus, he does know. She kept her stance relaxed, said firmly, “Mr. Ryan, you don’t owe me a damn thing.”

  She felt Adam tense with alarm.

  “Easy, tiger,” Ryan said, laughing. “You’re worrying the lad.”

  Ryan looked around at his minders, gathered in the background like vultures waiting for the kill. “Wait outside,” he said.

  No hesitation, they turned and left, pulling the office door shut behind them. Ruth had to hand it to him: he had a firm grip on his hired muscle.

  After a second or two of silence, Ryan said, “Look . . . I don’t want to embarrass you, and I’m not trying to trap you, all right?” Ruth thought she read the first genuine emotion in his facial expression since she’d first had sight of him. “I just reckon this”—he gestured to include Ruth and himself—“is long overdue.”

  Ruth was about to speak, but he raised a finger to stay her.

  “I know you didn’t have me in mind when you done the business, but we both got a result, didn’t we? And one good turn deserves another, so this one’s on me.”

  “I think we’ll be going,” Ruth said.

  He looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he nodded, dismissing them. As Ruth turned to leave, he added, “But don’t come poking around my manor again.”

  “From gratitude to threats,” she said, “with barely a pause for breath.”

  He poured himself another whisky. “Nah,” he said. “If it was a threat, he’d be leaving here in an ambulance.” He jerked his chin toward Adam. “This, Sergeant, is a friendly warning.”

  He was watching her closely, but Ruth knew the real danger had passed; she wasn’t about to let him see any signs of anxiety in her now.

  “Careful with those friendly warnings, Mr. Ryan. Maybe I’ll come back with a few hairy-arsed constables.”

  He laughed again. “Don’t try to kid a kidder. We both know this little adventure of yours is completely off the books. And youse lot’ve got your hands full with this Ferryman character—you don’t want to be bothered with a legitimate businessman, earning an honest bob.”

  This time Ruth laughed, but Ryan didn’t seem to take it amiss. He grinned with her, hit a button on his desk, and when the door opened, he said, “Give Sergeant Lake her phone.” His eyes flicked to Adam Black. “The lad can have his, too. Take her and Mr. Black wherever they want to go.”

  “Thanks,” Ruth said, “but we’ll hail a cab.”

  As soon as they were off the premises Adam tried to storm off. Ruth grabbed him by the collar and jerked him back.

  “You can talk to me over a pint, or I can take you in and question you under caution,” she said.

  He shook free of her. “Think I’m stupid? You can’t arrest me—I’ve done nothing.”

  “That has yet to be determined.” She flagged a taxi and as it pulled up to the curb, she said, “Make up your mind. Which is it to be—a pint, or a prison cell?”

  44

  They ended up at Peter Kavanagh’s pub, in a quiet street of modest Georgian houses near the Anglican Cathedral. Ruth knew the landlady from her days as a cop on the beat and gave her a nod as they entered. It was late, and the crowd was beginning to thin, so she sent Adam to the bar while she bagged a corner seat where she could keep an eye on both him and the door. They were safely out of Dave Ryan’s area, but she was taking no chances.

  She texted Carver with the brief message: “I’m fine. Call off the cavalry.”

  Within seconds, her phone pinged with the furious reply: “No. NO way. A text? After you just got shanghaied? Get on the phone NOW or I’ll mount the damned charge myself!”

  She rang him. “Boss, I’m fine,” she said.

  “How do I know you’re not under duress?”

  “I’m at Peter Kavanagh’s. You know Rita, the landlady.” She’d introduced him to Rita during the previous case when they went for a drink to discuss strategy. “I’ll put her on.”

  Adam had returned with the drinks and Ruth gestured for him to sit, while she went to the bar.

  “Rita, you got a minute? Greg Carver wants to say hi.”

  Rita looked at her like she’d gone soft, but Carver was a celebrity in the city, and she shrugged, held out her hand to accept the phone. “Hiya, lad. Heard you were doing better after—you know—what happened . . .” No bar owner worth her salt was going to mention a shooting in her pub, even if it did happen in a private house, a few miles down the road. She listened for a moment. “Well, you’re welcome anytime. Come in and have one on the house.” Carver must have said something, because she laughed.

  “Someone’s in trouble,” she said, still chortling.

  Ruth took the phone. “Don’t I know it.” She kept one eye on Adam, who was sipping his beer, sunk into a morose contemplation of his mobile phone. She didn’t like that he still had access to it, and she wanted Carver off the phone as soon as possible so she could get back to him.

  “What the bloody hell are you playing at?” Carver demanded.

  “I’ll explain, I promise,” Ruth said.

  “Now.”

  “As soon as I’m finished here.”

  “Finished with what?”

  There was no way to get out of saying it: “Interviewing Adam Black.”

  She heard a muttered curse at the other end of the line, then, “I knew it.”

  Adam pocketed his phone and took a swallow of ale.

  “Okay, I’ve gotta go before he drinks himself stupid.” She hung up before Carver could say anything more.

  Adam had supped half his pint in the few minutes it had taken Ruth to make the call.

  “Slow down,” she said, sliding onto the bench seat opposite him. “I need you to make sense.”

  His eyes on her, he took another good glug of beer. “What d’you want?”

  She sighed. “All right, let’s get this over with. You were caught on a crime scene video.”

  She saw a fleeting alarm in his eyes; then he tugged his neat goatee, said, “Could you vague that up a bit for me?”

  He had straightened his disarranged hair, but the bruise on his cheek was darkening, and he’d probably have a good shiner by the morning. The bruise bothered her, but the nose ring was more off-putting: it seemed so at odds with her last image of Adam. It’s been nine years, she told herself. He’s a grown man, a different person from the one you knew. A witness, and possible suspect in a murder investigation—get over the damn nose ring.

  “Six days ago,” she said, watching for his reaction like she would any witness. “On the car park of the Nuffield Gym, by the old Dingle Railway Station.”

  Relief flooded his face, and she even saw a hint of amusement. “Catch the Gamma Wave,” he said, giving it the Ferryman’s chosen title. “What did you think of it?”

  “Why were you there?”

  The question seemed to perplex him. “I thought you’d approve of me going to an art exhibition.”

  She gave him a look she usually reserved for the slimiest bottom-feeders and scallies, and he rolled his eyes as if to say, Fine, have it your way.

  “It’s the biggest thing in art this century—why wouldn’t I be there?”

  “You call that art?”

  He seemed to consider the que
stion seriously. “Others do.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  He shot her a hostile look that said, You think I care?

  “What ‘favor’ did you do for Dave Ryan?” he demanded.

  “None.”

  “Well, he seemed grateful.”

  “I told you, that was bullshit,” she said. “He wanted to put me off balance.”

  “Because you’re a bent cop?”

  “Because I’m a pain in his arse.” What the hell are you doing, answering his questions? You need to take control of this interview. She straightened her back and said, “Just before they brought you into the room, Ryan asked was I sure I wanted to know where you were—and, by implication, what you were up to. Why is that?”

  No answer.

  “He seemed to know you,” she pressed. “It seemed to me that you’d met—maybe done business with him.”

  Adam wiped a hand over his mouth, covering a smile. “You could say that.”

  “Adam, I’m not messing about here. My boss has been on at me for days to bring you in. But I wanted to give you the chance to put your side of things, first.”

  He snuffed air through his nose. “Want the whole sob story—a blow-by-blow account of what happened to me after you fucked up my life? It’s a bit late for that, Ruth.”

  That stung. “You’re the one who slapped a noncontact order on me.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, well, you were a pain in my arse, back then.”

  Okay, take a breath. “Why aren’t you on any of the local registers I tried?”

  “I don’t use Adam Black much anymore.”

  “What do you use?”

  “Got a notebook, Sergeant? I’d better write it down.”

  She decided to overlook the snide tone and handed over her notepad and pen, watched him write: “MadAdaM.”

  “Capital M, either end,” he said. “What you call a palindrome—see?”

  “And are you?” she said, unexpectedly touched by his defiant bravado.

  “What?” he said. “A palindrome?”

  “Mad,” she said.

  He looked her in the eye. “In all kinds of ways.” He broke eye contact and drained his pint. “Fuck it, I’m getting pissed. D’you want another?”

  She reached for the wallet she carried with her on duty, but he waved it away.

  “My shout.”

  He peeled off the leather biker jacket and dumped it on the bench beside him as he stood. Under it, he wore a sleeveless T-shirt, and his right arm bore a tattoo of pistons overlaid by realistic-looking muscle and a few scraps of shredded skin. Ruth gasped, then tried to cover, but he had already turned away and was halfway to the bar.

  She studied him as he ordered a fresh round of drinks, Rita smiling and joking with him. He can turn on the charm, then. Just not for me. His left arm was inked as gray metalware: bolts and pistons, cogs and conduits, some overlaid with armor. She could hardly bring herself to look at the tattoo that emerged from the neck of his tee: black lines, branching to nodes, suggesting a neural network.

  A completely different person, she told herself, but as he set down the glasses, she couldn’t help asking, “What’s with the cyber tattoos?”

  “Biomechanical,” he corrected. “Cyber’s more computer-oriented.” He half turned and tapped the black lines on the back of his neck. “Like this.” He sat next to her, more confident now, as if showing his tattoos gave him strength. “Anyway, I heard you got one of your own.”

  “What did you say?”

  His eyebrow twitched. “Relax, Ruth—word gets around.”

  “Not about this, it doesn’t.” Even if he’d followed the case on TV, the tattoo inflicted on her by the Thorn Killer was not in the public domain.

  “What?” he said again.

  She stared him down. “You’d better explain yourself, right now, or I swear I’ll kick your arse from here to the nearest nick.”

  “Just like old times, huh?” He tried a crooked grin, abandoned the effort. “It’s no big deal,” he said with a sigh. “You were seen, that’s all.”

  “By who, and when?”

  He sucked his teeth, and she half rose, ready to haul him in.

  “All right—chill. Dude goes into the laser clinic to get a tattoo removed after it gets into an ugly mess. Which was his own fault because the stupid wanker did not follow simple aftercare instructions and . . .” He lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “Never mind. Upshot—he saw you.”

  She felt sick.

  Adam must have misread what he saw in her face because he said, “Oh, come on. You’re more recognizable than the Kardashians these days.”

  Ruth reflected that maybe she should have left it to others to interview Adam Black: he wasn’t showing her any respect at all. But she dismissed the thought—she’d started this, and she would damn well finish it.

  “So that’s how you make a living,” she asked. “As a tattoo artist?”

  “Cop question, or d’you actually give a shit?”

  “Both,” she said.

  “What makes you think—?”

  “I’m guessing that the ‘wanker’ who had to have his tattoo removed was one of your clients.”

  He gave a short laugh, and, startled to hear something of the old Adam in it, she felt a sudden rush of dangerous emotion—was wildly, unprofessionally glad to see him happy.

  “What’ve you been doing all these years, Adam?”

  “Staying out of your way, mostly,” he said, but he was still smiling.

  She waited, and after half a minute he went on.

  “After I got out—of care, not prison—all right?”

  She said, “I assumed that’s what you meant.”

  “Sure,” he scoffed. He sipped his beer, which she read as him taking an opportunity to get himself back under control. “Anyway, after that, I got into the underground art scene.”

  She frowned, inviting an explanation.

  “Street art,” he said.

  “Graffiti.”

  “Independent public art.”

  “The kind that gets spray-painted on walls and underpasses,” she said.

  He sucked his teeth. “But now I do trompe l’oeil, mostly. That’s—”

  “Pictures that fool the eye. I know.” She assessed his clothing, haircut, and calculated that, urban casual though they were, they didn’t come cheap. Her mind went back to Dave Ryan’s office, and the false impression of a moonlit garden.

  “So how do you get paid?”

  He laughed again. “You always were the practical one.”

  “Yeah, well, I had to be.”

  She’d put some edge in her voice and he stared at her for a few moments. She thought maybe she saw a measure of acceptance in his brief nod before he went on. “Commissions,” he said. “People like your art, they’ll pay you to do it.” For a second, she thought he was about to expand, but he bit down on his lower lip.

  “People like Dave Ryan?” He hesitated, frowning in question, and she added, “The window shutters.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” he said. “And for info—I am a tattoo artist. A bloody good one.”

  She nodded. He was boastful and defensive, playful and resentful by turns. Classic ambivalence.

  “So why the interest in the Ferryman?” she asked.

  “The clue is in the job description.” He gave her a hard look. “Or d’you think street art and tattooists don’t qualify as ‘real’ artists?”

  Defensive again. “That’s not what I meant,” Ruth said. “But let me ask you this: Do you think this ‘Ferryman’ is a real artist?”

  “Why d’you ask?”

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “Without a simple answer.”

  “Come on. He’s a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Oh, so that’s the answer you wanted to hear—you should’ve said.”

  “It’s what I’d hope to hear,” she countered. “Surely, no right-thinking human being could call that ‘art’
?”

  “Are you done asking me insulting questions? ’Cos I’d like to go home now.”

  “Not a chance,” she said. “We’re nowhere near finished yet.”

  They shared a taxi to his home. Adam’s story was that he and two mates shared the upper floors of a disused pub near Clarence Dock at the north of the city. The lower half of the place was secured with steel roller shutters; a hand-painted sign, hung from the pub sign bracket, read dash-art above an image of a guerrilla-style figure with spray can in hand, finishing a graffito of a mermaid on a riverfront wall.

  “All right,” Adam said, “you’ve seen where I live. Now shove off.”

  Ruth paid the driver and stepped out of the cab.

  “Oh, for f—” Adam raised his arms and let them drop.

  “I want to see you let yourself in with your own latchkey,” Ruth said. “Then you can show me a utility bill in your own name and make me a cup of coffee in your own kitchen.” She also wanted an introduction to the rest of Team Dash-Art. Images floated into her mind of gray, hooded figures stenciled on walls and street furniture around the city.

  Adam brought his hands to his sides and clenched them into fists.

  “You want to get rid of me, that’s the deal.”

  Through gritted teeth he said, “All right. Ten minutes.”

  The flat was accessed via a side door that gave directly onto a steep stairwell. Adam took her up and along the landing to the kitchen, passing two doors. Both stood open—she glimpsed a sofa in one and a bed in the other.

  “No locks on the doors,” she said. “You must trust your mates.”

  He didn’t comment.

  A second set of stairs at the far end of the landing led up to the top floor.

  Ruth peered up the stairway while the kettle boiled. “What’s up there?”

  “Two more bedrooms, a bathroom,” he said.

  “Mind if I take a look around?”

  “Yes.” He shoved a mug into her hand. “I mind. A lot.”

  They carried their drinks through to the room with the sofa. It was battered brown leather. Adam flopped into one of two matching armchairs, balancing his coffee mug on the arm. The floor was bare boards, stained and varnished, but with paint spattered in places. There was no TV, but a desktop computer sat on a trestle table. The expanse of wall behind was covered in a mural in three parts. Ruth was no art expert, but she could see three distinct styles—graffiti art like the one of the shop sign, a middle panel that combined textiles and photographic elements with acrylic paint, and then there was Adam’s contribution.