Ash & Bone

by John Harvey

  How far was that? Elder wondered.

  'These past weeks,' Miles said, 'she's been out of control. Running wild.'

  'Don't exaggerate,' Joanne said.

  'You wouldn't know, Frank,' Miles continued, ignoring her. 'No way you could, not living where you do. But she's been doing just as she likes, out all hours. Seventeen, I know, Frank, a young woman, but even so. Rolled up here drunk more than a few times, smelling like I-don't-know-what, some poor sod of a taxi-driver outside waiting to get paid. I've tried talking to her but she won't listen. And, besides, you might not think it's my place.'

  'All that happens,' Joanne said, 'you end up losing your temper.'

  'Sometimes she's enough to make a saint lose his temper.'

  'You would know.'

  'Okay, okay.' Miles raised both hands in resignation. 'I'll off out and get a drink, let you two talk amongst yourselves. Good to see you, Frank.'

  Elder nodded.

  Whistling softly, Martyn Miles slipped his feet into a pair of soft leather shoes, pulled on his leather coat, expensive and black, and left the room. Neither of them spoke until they heard the front door close.

  'Sit down, Frank. Are you sure you won't have a drink? I'm having one.'

  'Okay, a small Scotch'll be fine.'

  'I'll see what there is.'

  'Anything.'

  She poured herself a large white wine, Elder a more-than-decent measure of good malt.

  'She's not here, then?' Elder said. 'Katherine?'

  'She came in an hour ago, changed her clothes and went out again.'

  'She knew I was going to be here?'

  'I told her.'

  'And you don't know where she went?'

  Joanne shook her head.

  Elder sipped his Scotch. 'You said she was seeing someone.'

  'Rob Summers.'

  'Someone she knew from school, or…?'

  'He's not a boy, Frank. In his twenties, maybe more.'

  'You've met him, then?'

  'Not met exactly.'

  'And the two of them, it's serious?'

  'If it was, it wouldn't be so bad. It's more casual than that, as far as I can tell. His whim, I dare say. When she's not with him, she's hanging round with all manner of riff-raff. Punks and Goths and God knows what. The kind you see lolling around the Old Market Square.'

  'Jesus,' Elder said.

  'I am worried about her, Frank. You know, drugs and everything.'

  'She's got a level head on her.'

  'You think so?'

  Elder got up and paced from wall to wall. 'That psychiatrist she was seeing…'

  'Psychotherapist.'

  'You haven't talked to her, I suppose?'

  'Katherine stopped going to her a good few months ago.'

  Elder stopped close to where she was sitting on the settee. 'It's a mess, isn't it? A fucking mess.'

  Reaching up, she took hold of his hand and, for a moment, until he pulled it away, rested her head against his arm.

  * * *

  Elder spent the night in one of the small hotels out on the Mansfield Road, took one look at the breakfast and opted instead for a brisk walk into the city centre, a coffee sitting hunched up against the window in Caffe Nero, scanning the front page of the paper someone had left behind.

  The Old Market Square had been titivated since Elder had seen it last. The grassed areas towards the Beastmarket end had been landscaped and some of the old benches had been replaced. Katherine was sitting between two men of indeterminate age, bearded, shaggy-haired and scruffily dressed, cans of cheap lager in their hands. It was not yet ten in the morning.

  A girl in a beaded halter top and skintight jeans, her face festooned with studs and rings, sat cross-legged on the ground.

  A third man with a blond pony-tail, wearing jeans and a stained Stone Roses sweatshirt, stood with one foot balanced on the end of the bench, watching Elder as he approached.

  Elder stopped a short distance away.

  'Kate…'

  Not looking up, Katherine continued, carefully, to roll a cigarette.

  'Katherine, we have to talk.'

  'Sod off,' one of the seated men said.

  Katherine brought the roll-up to her mouth and licked along the edge; pulling clear a few stray strands of tobacco, she took a disposable lighter from her pocket and lit the cigarette, drawing the smoke down into her lungs. One more drag and she passed it to the man on her left.

  'Katherine,' Elder said again, his voice raised and impatient.

  'Leave me alone.'

  'I can't.'

  Elder moved closer and the pony-tailed man swung his foot down from the bench and stood in his way.

  'He's police,' one of the men on the bench said. 'Fuckin' law.'

  'Not any more,' Katherine said.

  'Who is he then?'

  'My father. He thinks he's my father.'

  'Katherine

  'She doesn't want to talk to you,' the pony-tailed man said. 'Can't you see?'

  'Get out of the way,' Elder said.

  The man grinned and stood his ground. 'Make me.'

  Fists clenched tight at his sides, Elder wanted to take a swing at the sneering face and punch it as hard as he could. Instead, with one last glance at Katherine, he walked away to the sound of their jeers.

  * * *

  What the fuck, Elder thought, as he crossed South Parade and on to Wheeler Gate, what the fuck am I doing here? What's the point of all this? A waste of fucking time. He was no more than a stone's throw from the railway station before he stopped and turned around.

  For the next two hours, he stood in shop doorways, sat on the stone steps in front of the Council House, shared a desultory conversation with the Post seller near the corner of King Street and Long Row. He bought a sandwich and a cup of coffee in Pret A Manger and sipped the coffee slowly through the lid.

  The way Katherine was sitting now, arms tight across her chest and wearing only a thin sweater, he thought she must be cold. Perhaps if he bought coffee for her, some hot tea or soup… but he did neither, continued instead to watch and wait, knowing that she didn't want him anywhere near but unable now to drag himself away.

  He remembered her as a young girl, a child, tears flooding her eyes, screaming 'I hate you!' at the top of her lungs and then, moments later, allowing him to fold her inside his arms and kiss the top of her head, the warmth of her hair.

  As the bells chimed the quarter hour, a man crossed towards where Katherine was sitting.

  Instinct prickled the skin on Elder's wrists and the backs of his hands.

  He was not a big man, around five seven, slightly built, denim jacket, jeans, check shirt, basketball boots, fair hair flopping forward over his face. He spoke to several of the small group gathered round the bench, stepping back a pace or so to talk to the pony-tailed man, who had wandered off earlier and then returned. Katherine he ignored, but Elder had noticed the way she had become more alert at his approach, her back more upright, fingers combing through the rough shag of unkempt hair.

  Five minutes, more, and as if noticing her for the first time, he offered Katherine a cigarette and lit it from his own. Another few minutes and she was standing at his side, both of them talking now, quite animatedly. Three buses went past in slow convoy, hiding them temporarily from Elder's view, and when he saw them again they were walking towards the fountains, passing in between, his hand coming to rest across the top of her shoulders as they moved past one of the stone lions guarding the Council House before turning right into Exchange Arcade.

  Elder picked them up again as they emerged.

  At the foot of Victoria Street, the man reached for her hand and she pulled it away. Down through Hockley not touching, side by side. Coffee shops, bars, hairdressers, retro clothing, Indian restaurants. Goose Gate into Gedling. Waiting for a gap in the traffic on Carlton Road, his arm went round her shoulders again and she did nothing to resist.

  Now they were in Sneinton, short rows of narrow stre
ets, terraced houses, back-to-backs, some with brightly painted front doors and patterned blinds, others with makeshift curtains at the windows, broken glass. The house they stopped outside was midway along, a fading 'Not in My Name' poster alongside one more recent, 'War Criminal!' writ large above a photograph of George W Bush.

  A cat, ginger and white with a white-tipped tail, jumped up on to the window ledge and rubbed its head against Katherine's arm as she stood waiting for the man to unlock the door. Running between their legs, the animal followed them into the house and the door closed behind them. Though it was yet the middle of the day, he glimpsed Katherine for a moment, standing at the downstairs window, before she pulled the curtains closed. Whether she saw him or not, he did not know.

  8

  He stood there for five minutes, ten, fifteen. My father. He thinks he's my father. There was still time to walk away. Elder walked, instead, across the street and, seeing no bell, knocked on the door.

  The music playing as the door opened was loud, rhythmic and fast, nothing he recognised.

  'Yes?'

  'Rob Summers?'

  'Depends.'

  'On what?'

  Summers smiled. The check on his shirt was mostly shades of green and grey; his eyes a pale, watery blue.

  Elder looked past him into the narrow hall. Coats hung, bunched, along one wall; a strip of carpet, worn but clean, along the floor.

  'Police, right?' Summers said. 'You're not selling something, not religious. You must be the police.'

  'Not exactly.'

  A smile of understanding passed across Summers's face and, relaxing his shoulders, he leaned sideways against the wall. 'Katie,' he said, putting a little singsong into his voice. 'Your old man's here.'

  After a moment, Katherine appeared at the end of the hall, waited long enough to recognise her father's face, then turned away.

  'I suppose you'd better come in,' Summers said.

  The room was small and dimly lit, a small settee and two unmatched armchairs taking up much of the space. Shelves either side of the empty fireplace were filled with books, videos and DVDs, crammed in this way and that. More books and magazines lay in piles upon the floor. In one corner was a small TV, video recorder alongside, DVD player on top. More shelving stretched along the back wall, what had to be several hundred vinyl albums below the different elements of the stereo system, CDs in profusion above.

  The smell of dope hung, faint but sweet, upon the air.

  Summers lowered himself into one of the chairs and motioned for Elder to do the same. The bass beat from the speakers was repetitive and insistent.

  'Get you anything?' Summers asked. 'Coffee, anything?'

  'You think you could turn the music down a little?'

  'Sure.' Summers pressed the remote on the arm of his chair.

  'I want to talk to Katherine,' Elder said.

  'That's up to her.'

  'I've come a long way.'

  'Cornwall, isn't it?'

  'Yes,' Elder said, surprised that he knew, that she had bothered to tell him.

  'Your choice, wasn't it?'

  'Look.' Elder leaned forward. 'You can see the state she's in.'

  'State?'

  'You know what I mean.'

  'I'm not sure I do.'

  'Those people in the Square…'

  'What about them?'

  Elder shook his head.

  'They look out for her,' Summers said. 'Leave her alone.'

  'And you?'

  Summers pushed himself up from his chair. 'Back in a minute, okay? I'll see what she says.'

  Alone in the room, Elder looked around. White Stripes. Four Tet. The People's Music. Diane di Prima. Ginsberg. Dylan. Drop City. Neil Young. Several copies of the same pale green booklet on top of a stack of magazines. Scar: Poems by Rob Summers. Elder lifted one clear and flicked through the pages.

  the snap of his cuff

  a blade's edge

  brilliant threads

  vermilion wings

  sweat coils

  slow and sure

  violet rope

  around your neck

  face blinded

  I brace my back

  against a sudden

  blaze of light

  'You read poetry?' Summers said, coming back into the room.

  Elder let the booklet fall closed on his lap. 'No, not really.'

  Summers sat back down.

  'You write a lot?' Elder asked.

  'A lot?' Summers smiled. 'I don't know about that. But yes, when I can. Poetry mostly. The occasional short story.'

  'And you can earn a living doing that?'

  'I wish.'

  'What do you do?'

  Summers smiled again. He smiled a lot. 'Teach, what else? Class at the university. Adult Ed. Bits and pieces here and there.'

  'I do want to talk to Katherine,' Elder said. 'Then I'll

  go.'

  'She knows you're here. It's up to her.'

  'If you asked her,' Elder said.

  Smiling, Summers shook his head. 'That's not the way it works.'

  'Rob,' Katherine said from the doorway, 'it's all right.' How long she had been standing there, Elder wasn't sure.

  'You want me to stay?' Summers asked her.

  'No, it's all right.' Her face was pale, tiredness darkening her eyes.

  Summers touched Katherine lightly as he went past.

  Elder waited for her to come and sit down, but instead she walked to the window and opened the curtains enough to be able to look out. The music came to an end, and voices could be heard, faint and indistinct, through the neighbouring wall. In the kitchen, Rob Summers was washing pots, putting them away.

  'I'm sorry,' Elder said finally.

  'What for?' He had to strain to make out the words.

  'Whatever I've done to make you this upset. Angry.'

  When she turned to look at him there were tears he hadn't anticipated on her face.

  'I don't know what you expect from me,' Elder said. 'I don't know what you expect me to do.'

  'Nothing.'

  'You're hurting yourself, you must realise that.'

  Slowly, Katherine shook her head. 'You saved me. From Keach. After he did all that stuff to me. He was going to kill me and you saved me.'

  'Yes.'

  'And now you wish you hadn't.'

  'That's ridiculous.'

  'Is it?'

  'Yes.'

  'You don't like me like this.'

  Elder paused. 'No. No, of course I don't.'

  'You want me to be like I was before.'

  'Yes.'

  She slid her hands across her face. 'Dad, I'm never going to be like I was before.'

  How long he sat there he wasn't sure. Summers didn't reappear. Katherine left the room and then returned and the next thing he was standing beside her at the front door.

  'You'll be careful,' he said.

  'Yes, of course.' A smile fading in her eyes, she seemed young again, young and old beyond her years. You're seventeen, he wanted to say. Seventeen. What are you going to do with your life?

  'If… if I need to get in touch?'

  'Call me at Mum's.'

  'Not here?'

  'Bye, Dad.' Fleetingly, she kissed him on the cheek. Her hand touched his. She stepped back into the house and closed the door. A moment later, maybe two, the curtains were pulled back fast across.

  * * *

  Beyond Plymouth the train slowed its pace, stopping every twenty minutes or so at this small town or that. Countless times, Elder picked up his book only to set it back down. Staring out of the window into the passing dark, there was only his own face staring back. Six miniatures of Scotch lined up, empty, on the table before him: the slow but steady application of alcohol to the wound, the plastering over of helplessness and guilt. Should he have stayed? With a sweep of his hand, he sent the bottles flying, ricocheting from seat to empty seat and skittering along the floor. The few people still in the carriage tightened their
faces and made themselves as small as they could.

  By the time the train drew, finally, into Penzance, there were no more than a dozen or so passengers left. From the platform he could hear the sea, the waves splashing up against the concrete wall.

  The taxi-driver bridled when Elder told him the address. 'It's gonna cost 'e. Hole through my exhaust goin' down that lane, had that happen before.'

  Ignoring him, Elder slumped into the back.

  Come morning, he knew, his head would feel like a heavy ball that had been bounced too many times. The cottage was a darkened shell. He gave the taxi-driver five pounds over the odds and stood watching him drive away, red tail lights visible between the dark outlines of bracken and stone that lined the lane and then not visible at all. Inside, he drank water, swallowed two aspirin and went to bed.

  * * *

  Rain, hard against the windows, woke him at three; by five he was sitting in the kitchen below, leafing through a week-old issue of the Cornishman and drinking tea. When eventually he stepped outside, purple light was already bruising the crest of the moor and all he could see was Katherine's face.

  But within an hour the rain had dispersed and there was freshness in the air. In a short while, he would set off on a walk, possibly along the Tinner's Way, past Mulva Quoit to Chun Castle and beyond, allow his head the chance to clear. Later, he might take the car into town, spend some time in the gym; stock up on food, call in at the library, see about, perhaps, signing on for that woodworking course he'd been thinking of. Settle back into a routine. So far away, it was almost possible to forget the rest of the world existed.

  Family. Friends. Responsibilities.

  9

  Maddy Birch's body was found near Crouch Hill, at the bottom of a steep path leading down to the disused railway line. A woman walking her dog, early morning, saw something flesh-coloured sticking up from between the leaves. Her 999 call was classified immediate and a patrol car arrived minutes later, driving in along the narrow lane leading past the adventure playground and children's nursery towards the community centre at the furthest end.

  The body had fallen or been thrown some forty feet down the muddied bank into a tangle of blackberry bush and bracken.

  The first officers at the scene called for reinforcements and began moving back the small scattering of spectators which had already started to gather. Soon the area would be secured and properly cordoned off by officers from Forensic Science Services, the body shielded by a canopy until the medical examiner had finished his preliminary investigation. Diagrams would be drawn, the scene examined in scrupulous detail, numerous Polaroids taken, measurements noted down: the whole operation captured on video.