by J G Alva
“Get the fuck out of here,” Sutton said darkly. “And don’t come back.”
Arby looked at him, afraid, the courage slapped out of him, and then turned and skittered off, a curious knock-kneed run that seemed to indicate he had soiled himself. For all Sutton knew, maybe he had.
*
“That sick little asshole,” Freddie said, staring out of the window. “He was here for half an hour before anybody told me. Recruiting. With his fucking camera. I kicked him the fuck out as soon as I found out. Half an hour. Can you believe it?”
Freddie’s office was in the roof of the shelter he ran; the ceiling sloped down and stopped at just under head height, so that if Sutton were to look out of the window he would have to stoop or risk banging his head.
The office was immaculate. Paperwork was organised and filed in brightly coloured folders, which sat in two battered but functioning bookcases against the west wall. Freddie’s desk was spotless, save for a handful of papers that needed attending to on a rubber writing mat. A computer sat unobtrusively on the edge of the desk, the wires tucked inconspicuously out of sight around the side. Two small IN/OUT trays, mostly empty, sat at the front.
“If they could look after themselves, then they wouldn’t be here in the first place, Freddie,” Sutton remarked, not without feeling.
Freddie nodded. He already knew it, but still he looked unhappy. With a twitch of his shoulders, he shook it off, and then turned from the window to Sutton. He produced a smile; it seemed to come up from some great depth, like an ancient ship being raised from muddy waters.
He grabbed Sutton in a bear hug. Sutton patted him on the back.
Freddie whispered, “how are you?”
“Alright. Well. I will be as soon as you let go of me.”
Freddie released him.
“Such a pussy,” he said, shaking his head.
“You’re looking well. How’s married life?”
Freddie rolled his eyes but he was still smiling. He moved the IN/OUT trays to one side and perched on the edge of his desk.
“It’s hard to describe,” he said, his hands moving about in the air. “If I had to compare it to something, I’d have to say it’s like quicksand. Or drowning. Like that creature in the Return of the Jedi. You know. A living hole in the earth, swallowing everything up.”
Sutton laughed.
“I don’t believe you’d allow it to be like that.”
“It’s good,” he admitted honestly. “Very good. Almost surprisingly good.”
“Like you were born to it?”
“Well. Let’s not go too fucking far here. But I’m enjoying the sex. I’m not used to getting so much. And offered so readily. Mm. I imagine it’s what it must be like to be Sutton Mills.”
“Ho ho. So funny.”
Freddie wiggled his eyebrows.
“I have my moments.”
Shaven headed, with gold framed glasses, and always impeccably dressed, Freddie looked like a history teacher, or an ageing Italian fashion designer. The years were starting to catch up with him though, and the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes were cutting deeper. But it was a good face, attached to a better man. Like Sutton, he had a past to reconcile…but perhaps unlike Sutton, he was on the way to accepting what he had been and the things he had done. Bad things, hurting people unnecessarily…they were more alike than either of them cared to admit. It was a part of their friendship, but Sutton hoped it was not the most important part.
A good portion of Freddie’s reconciliation must be the Shelter. A place for homeless people to get food, and perhaps accommodation, if they needed it…accepted it would perhaps be more accurate. Freddie had a way with people that Sutton was quite envious of. He always managed to persuade a counsellor or nurse to help out around the Shelter, and he was never short of volunteers. He couldn’t pay them, but they helped anyway.
“What are you doing this Thursday?” Freddie asked, bringing him back to the here and now.
“What?”
“Thursday?”
“What about it?”
“Lisa wants to meet you. My wife. I promise to cook my famous chilli chilli. So hot they named it twice.”
“Freddie-“
“I know that face. Don’t let me down. It’s been too long.”
Freddie stared at him, his expression a little forlorn, until Sutton relented and said, “alright. Thursday.”
Freddie clapped his hands together.
“Great-“
“But you have to do something for me,” he said.
“Sure. Who do you need to find?” He pushed the glasses up his nose.
Sutton smiled. He always seemed to know.
“I haven’t got a name.”
“Well. I like a challenge.”
“But he’s an addict. I saw the track marks in his arms.”
“What does he look like?”
“Tall. Taller than me, I think about six seven, six eight. But sort of skinny. Dark hair. And a scar at the left side of his mouth. Sound familiar?”
Freddie thought for a moment, his eyes distant.
“No,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “It doesn’t ring any bells in the old noggin. But I can ask around, if you want.”
“If you could.”
“What do you want him for?”
“Do you remember Gavin Thompson?”
“Gavin? Sure. You used to work with him. At that garage. What was it called? I haven’t seen him in years.”
“He was murdered. Just last week.”
Freddie sucked in his breath then. He stared at Sutton’s face, perhaps to see if he was joking, before reaching under his glasses to rub his eyes. Eventually, he took the glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache.
“Shit, Sutton. You know how to knock the fucking wind out of a person. Sometimes I forget just what it is you do to earn a living.”
“I’d rather not be doing this. Believe me.”
“I don’t,” Freddie said, putting his glasses back on. “And I’m surprised that you believe it. I thought you were smarter than that.”
Rubbing the back of his head, Sutton said warningly, “Freddie…”
“It’s okay,” Freddie said, holding his hands up. “I’ll spare you the pain of a lecture.”
“Thank you.”
“This guy, this one you’re after, he did it?”
“Yes. And he came after me last night. Tried to see if he could rearrange my face.”
“The company you keep. I wondered why you looked like you’d been mauled by a tiger. I was afraid to ask.”
“I’ve been prodding hornet’s nests to see if anything came out to sting me. It did, but I don’t know which nest is the guilty one.”
Freddie stared at him, looking thoughtful.
“I did hear, through the grapevine, that Veronica Halls got an early release.”
Veronica Halls. Shit. The company you keep…
Sutton shook his head.
“Veronica. I thought she had another three years before parole.”
Freddie shrugged: it was a strange world.
“I imagine that she doesn’t think too fondly of you,” he said.
“No,” Sutton admitted glumly.
“Think she might be one of the hornet’s nests?”
“I don’t see how,” Sutton replied, thinking about it. “But I suppose I need to find out, one way or another.”
“You be careful with that cunt. She’s got more faces than a dodecahedron.”
Sutton nodded. Veronica Halls. No matter how full your plate was, you always had to make room for a little something extra.
“I’ll see what I can find out for you,” Freddie said, writing on a pad. “Tall, dark hair, scar at the left corner of his mouth. Got it. Let me make some calls.”
*
Veronica Halls.
On the way back to his car, Sutton thought about her.
She had been something of a famous face in the south wes
t of England. First a weather girl, and then the local news, and finally a chat show on an early weekday morning.
It was a perfect fit for her, or she was a perfect fit for it: she was lively, engaging, and she had a pretty face. She opened some supermarkets, turned on the Christmas lights in Bristol for two years running, was a prominent figure for a lot of local charities.
But then something happened. Her popularity began to wane; not with audiences, but with the people who employed her. Sutton knew that it had been rumours about her private life that had done the damage, filtering gently, inexorably, into the workplace. She did the best she could to keep the lid on her true predilections, but as her main hunting ground was her workplace, she couldn’t hope to keep it a secret forever.
She liked young girls. Eighteen and nineteen year old girls preferably, trainees working at the ITV studios in her department; she went through six that Sutton was able to uncover…one of which had only been seventeen. But it wasn’t even that she was a lesbian that was such a cause for concern, or the fact that she liked her girls so young…it was the manner in which she courted them: she got them drunk, and then addicted to hard drugs. She too was an addict, and it became all too apparent to the people that knew her that she was on a destructive downward spiral. The offers started to dry up as normally interested parties got wind of the rumours and opted not to take the chance on her. She was a ticking time bomb, and nobody wanted to be tied to her when she finally exploded.
And of course her decreasing popularity fuelled the spiral further.
Sutton got involved when one of her trainees went missing: Helen Board. Helen’s sister, Jenny Steadman, an old friend and now married with two children, could not locate her and asked Sutton to help. Invariably his investigations turned up witnesses who had seen Veronica and Helen together outside of work. Sutton found out what he could, and then turned the evidence over to the police. They found DNA evidence at Veronica’s house, but they never found a body. Coupled with a conviction for beating another girl who had spurned her advances, Veronica had been sentenced to seven years in prison; four without an offer of parole. Such a sweet girl.
Normally, Sutton tried to remain invisible, but the nature of the investigation meant that his orbit brought them together too many times for her not to be suspicious. All she had to do was ask the right question to the wrong people to know that his poking around had contributed to her conviction. To say that she had been less than thrilled with his involvement was something of an understatement.
Sutton was privately dismayed by the ever growing list of people who wanted to do him harm. But he supposed it was an unhappy side effect of what he did; like a miner’s black lungs.
And perhaps just as deadly.
*
There was a woman in Bristol Crown Court, a court reporter, or verbatim reporter, with access to information. Sutton could recall her in his mind’s eye with vivid clarity: a tall, thin girl, impossibly youthful at thirty one. She wore glasses, had nice dark hair, and was more than a little vigorous between the sheets…a surprising appetite, for one who was so shy in person. But for all that she seemed to have a kind of girlish naiveté which could be quite endearing. Sutton had known her for almost ten years. Her name was Melissa Hale.
With a click, the phone was answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” he said.
A quick intake of breath.
“Hello?” He repeated, worried.
“Sutton?” She breathed, shocked almost. And then quickly, “I’m married.”
He was caught off guard.
“Really?”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No, I mean…I hadn’t heard.”
“Mm. Two years.”
“Congratulations. Has it been that long?”
“Three years since I last saw you. I didn’t think…”
“What?”
A pause.
“That I’d hear from you again.”
She sounded upset.
“I know. I’m sorry. Things have…a lot has been happening.”
“I read about it. The Head Hunter. I saw the files and I recognized the Baltic Wharf address and I was worried-“
“I’m fine.”
“No. I was worried you would hurt him. And get yourself in trouble because of it.”
“Well. It’s done now.”
“Yes. Are you alright? You’re my hero.”
He laughed despite himself.
“I’m okay. But I could use your help.”
Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial level.
“What do you need?”
“Veronica Halls’ address.”
A shocked pause.
“The Veronica Halls?”
“The very one. Can you get it?”
A smaller pause.
“Yes. I think so.”
“Will you?”
A smile in her voice when she spoke:
“For you. Of course. I told you: you’re my hero. I’ll call you back.”
“And her phone number?”
“I’m on it.”
*
CHAPTER 10
WEDNESDAY
The Albion sits at the end of a small cobblestone alley, and has done since the 17th century. Sutton recalled reading that it had once been a Georgian coaching inn. A refurbishment at the turn of the millennium had brought it smartly up to date, although there was still something a little rustic about it: bow windows, wood flooring, and a real log fireplace made it cosy and welcoming, like a farmhouse.
From across the street, in a café, Sutton watched Veronica Halls turn into the narrow cobblestone alley that led to the entrance. Sutton’s cautiousness was more habit than engineered, but his premature arrival turned out to be very prudent when he noticed a tall man arrive after her; he stopped, turned and surveyed the immediate area before, satisfied, he too entered the cobblestone alley to the Albion. A bodyguard? He had the look about it him…
And the size.
Sutton gave it a couple of minutes before getting up and following them.
It was cold, but this hadn’t stopped the hardier patrons from venturing out. A low ceilinged interior meant Sutton had to bow his head when coming in through the entrance. The place was almost too warm: the log fire, with the leather sofas arranged around it, was burning fiercely.
Veronica was sitting just inside the door, by the window. Her coat was green wool, long to her knees, her gloves white; underneath, black trousers and black boots. She had dyed her hair brown, and had started wearing glasses…but if it was a disguise, then it was a poor one, as the glasses and outfit were too complimentary, and drew attention to themselves because of it: as if she had been outfitted by Wardrobe.
She looked up as Sutton stopped in front of her; her expression was carefully blank.
Sutton smiled despite himself. He didn’t know it, but it was not a nice smile.
“You didn’t trust me,” he said. “Even in a public place?”
She frowned, not understanding his meaning.
He indicated the bodyguard standing at the bar.
She nodded.
“He’s just a precaution. Sit.”
She indicated the seat opposite her and amused, Sutton took it.
She was a living contradiction. From the neck up she was all girl: in her presenter days she had been blonde of hair and blue of eye; faultless skin; a delicate heart shaped mouth; it was an exceptionally fine face. The contradiction was it being on top of the body of a female javelin thrower. Perhaps that was unfair…but from the collarbone down she was stocky, with big shoulders, and no breasts or hips to speak of.
It amused Sutton that the more masculine side to her seemed to predominate, at least in private; in public, on TV, she could gush and giggle with the best of them.
“I’m here,” she said, stirring sugar into a black coffee. “Would you mind telling me why I’m here?”
“I would say…curiosity.”
“You
asked me to come-“
“You wouldn’t have come just because I asked you.”
She stared at him, and then managed a thin, cold smile.
She finished stirring her coffee, tapped the spoon against the rim of the cup three times, and then took a sip.
“Fair enough. So why did you ask me to come?”
Sutton looked over at the bodyguard. He was still leaning on the bar, but he had turned around to watch them. He was big. Perhaps as tall as Sutton himself. He wore a long wool overcoat and matching flat cap. Underneath, he was bald. Sutton sometimes saw people as dogs; the more aggressive, the more dog-like they seemed to be. This guy was somewhere around about a Bull Terrier: obedient, loyal to whoever held his leash…but once activated, unstoppable. Definitely not one that Sutton would like to tangle with, if it could be avoided.
“I’m curious to know what you’re going to do,” he said, turning back to her.
She blinked.
“Do?”
“About me. You did swear to get me last time we were in a room together.”
“I almost did get you. If it hadn’t been for that guard…”
“And the table. But.” He raised a hand: c’est la vie. “I could have held my own.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“You’re quite comfortable hitting a girl then?”
“You’re no girl, Veronica.”
“Not anymore, perhaps.”
“And you like hitting girls more than I do.”
She put her coffee cup down, stared at it, her expression unhappy.
“If I decided to “do” anything about you, you could hardly expect me to tell you,” she said finally.
“No. But I’d hope to persuade you that doing anything wouldn’t be to your benefit.”
“And how would you persuade me of that? Are you not drinking?”
“No.”
“Oh, come. I’m not going to poison you. I’ll pay.”
She reached for her purse.
“Stop trying to impress me, Veronica,” Sutton said, staying her hand. “I’m not a camera lens. Believe me when I tell you I could find a way to persuade you. And whatever way I found…I’d have to do it. Because you’d have to see that I’d do it on my face. Do you understand? I’d have to follow it through. To its end.”
