Curtain Call

by Graham Hurley

  I hold his gaze for a long moment. He looks wrecked. There’s a big fat question mark hanging over this conversation and both of us know it. This isn’t about Sayid at all. He’s not the kind of person to upset anyone. It’s about Mitch.

  ‘So who made the call?’ I ask him. ‘And why?’

  He won’t answer the question and in a way I don’t blame him. All he wants is to be held, to be comforted, to have someone reassure him that there might – one day – come an end to this madness. That Sayid will recover. That the damage will be repaired. That their relationship will take them somewhere safe and perhaps a little brighter.

  I do the motherly things. I make tea. I offer toast. I lend a listening ear. Mitch has started to ramble a little. He wants to tell me about the good times he and Sayid have had, about the day they met at a seminar at the LSE, how they took a trip down the Thames on a tourist boat that same afternoon, surrounded by foreigners, how the relationship slowly deepened until Sayid was sharing Mitch’s kitchen, and finally his bed. This is all depressingly past tense, as if Mitch’s lover has died already, and I keep reminding him of the miraculous reach of modern medicine, how gifted strangers can reach deep into your brain and make you better.

  ‘You’d know, of course. I’m sorry. That’s crass.’

  ‘No problem. I don’t blame you. All I’m saying is that he’s still alive. Otherwise they’d have phoned you.’ I reach for his hand, give it a squeeze. ‘No news? Good news? Isn’t that the way it goes?’

  I leave him around half past seven. He wants a shower and a change of clothes. He’ll call me if anything happens. He hopes I don’t mind. I tell him again that I’m there whenever he needs me. As I close the front gate behind me I can see him in the front room, a ghost of a man. He lifts a hand, waving goodbye, and then he’s gone.

  Instead of looking for a bus stop or summoning an Uber, I take a walk to the end of the cul-de-sac. Access to the railway embankment is barred by an unmarked white van and a length of Police Do Not Cross tape that dances in the wind. Three men in forensic jump suits are combing through the grass where the embankment meets the scabby tarmac. I watch one recover a can of what looks like cider and sniff it before putting it carefully to one side. An assortment of other cans and bottles await sorting and bagging. This little tableau is beyond bleak. No one deserves to have been fighting for his life in a setting like this.

  Thoroughly depressed, I finally phone for an Uber. By nine o’clock, after the slow crawl north, I’m back in Holland Park. At this point I truly don’t know what to do. Unless Mitch has upset someone else, there has to be a connection between the Guardian article and what happened last night.

  Beating Sayid nearly to death is a very neat way of getting to Mitch. H and his mates may be much subtler than I’ve ever suspected but that puts us all in a place I never want to go. Maybe Spencer Willoughby was behind last night’s attack. Maybe he’s opened his cheque book and hired a bunch of thugs and made himself feel a great deal better in the process. Or maybe the Tories took umbrage at Tuesday’s article and did something similar. Whatever happened, I realize I will go to very great lengths not to believe any of this has anything to do with Malo’s new dad.

  I’ve been at home for a couple of hours when the phone rings. Thinking it might be Mitch I don’t bother to check caller ID. Silly mistake. Easily done. It’s H.

  ‘I’m just walking up your road,’ he says. ‘Posh-looking block? Four floors? Have I got that right?’

  He’s at the front door within the minute. I buzz him in and wait for the lift to arrive. He’s whistling a tune I don’t recognize. This is something new. I’ve never known H whistle before.

  ‘Nice.’

  I’ve invited him in. He’s left his briefcase on the table and he’s having a look round, exactly the way you might if you were planning to put in an offer. He seems very cheerful. The limp has gone and when I tell him to take a seat there’s none of the caution that’s attended every movement since he left hospital.

  ‘Well?’ He’s beaming up at me. ‘Everything shipshape?’

  This is a stupid question and I suspect we both know it. Since the moment I heard his voice on the phone I’ve realized what a bizarre conversation this is going to be. Deep inside, no matter how hard I fight the conclusion, I know that H must have had something to do with Sayid. It carries his fingerprints. In TV drama cop-speak, it’s very much his MO: clever, effective, ruthless. Yet the last thing I want to do is start any kind of conversation about Mitch Culligan because I’ve no idea where that might lead. Malo is still Malo. Malo is my son. And just now he seems to belong to H.

  ‘Shipshape?’ I query.

  ‘Here.’ H has opened his briefcase. Out comes a sheaf of artwork. He spreads it on the table. What happens next stretches my acting skills to their absolute limit. The artwork is themed around a single word: Remembrance. Sepia shots of Persephone under full sail bleed artfully into black and white photos from the D-Day landings. Five thousand pounds will buy you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to pay your respects to the hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers who were killed in the Battle of Normandy, and to the countless millions who died in both World Wars. The voyage has the blessing of a number of regimental associations and all proceeds will go to Front Line. There’s a promise of a four-course gourmet lunch afterwards in a top Normandy restaurant plus on-board silver service on both legs of the crossing. Better still, every guest will have the chance to get to know Persephone’s guest of honour. Me.

  I tell H it looks great. I tell him Malo’s done a fabulous job. I’ve absolutely no doubt that the voyage will be over-subscribed within weeks and that Front Line will be mega-grateful. I’m trying very hard to make this burst of enthusiasm sound both spontaneous and genuine, and I think I’ve done OK, but all I can really think of is that poor bloody man fighting for his life. Is now the time to step out of role and have a proper conversation? Or do we carry on the masquerade?

  H is looking pleased. He wants to know what I think of the photo Malo has chosen. H has his finger on it.

  ‘You mean of me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s fine. I was ten years younger then. Can these people handle disappointment?’

  H thinks that’s funny. He also thinks I’m wrong.

  ‘Beautiful women always age well,’ he says. ‘And you’re the living fucking proof. It’s not the boat that will get them on board. It’s you.’

  I’m not at all sure I want to be the come-on for a bunch of ageing war-junkies with time on their hands and far too much money, but that’s a different conversation. For now, all I want is to get H out of my apartment. I suspect he senses this. His feral instincts never let him down.

  ‘Busy, are we?’

  I glance at my watch. Nearly half past eleven. I can invent a lunch date. I can say that Evelyn needs some groceries. I can bring this little exchange to an end in any way I like. Except I know it’s not going to happen.

  H has produced a bottle from his briefcase. It’s very early for Krug.

  ‘Little celebration,’ he announces. ‘A toast for the boy’s efforts.’

  I fetch glasses from the kitchen. This is a bit like surfing, I tell myself. You try and spot the right wave and then see what happens.

  ‘Malo …’ H has his glass raised.

  I murmur my son’s name and do the same.

  ‘I’m surprised he’s not with you,’ I say.

  ‘He is. I dropped him at a courier place. Woman called Clemenza? Ring any bells?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve met her. He’s crazy about her and I’m not surprised. She’s lovely.’

  ‘So why didn’t you mention her before?’

  ‘She’s Malo’s business, not mine. Or yours for that matter.’

  This sounds harsher than I intended. I try and soften the impact with a smile but H seems oblivious.

  ‘Anything else you haven’t told me?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. In what respect? You want
to know about my girlfriends? My marriage? My all-time favourite movie? Only this could take a while.’

  ‘Don’t play games, gal. Not with me.’

  ‘Gal’ is new. ‘Gal’ comes loaded with menace. This is a new H, a different H, and he is, to be frank, scary. I’m trying very hard not to think about that embankment. Or Wesley Kane. Or expanding foam.

  I ask H how long he’s been up in town.

  ‘We came up last night,’ he says. ‘M and me. Took him to a casino. Stayed at a nice hotel. Made a fuss of the boy. He loved it.’

  I nod, reach for my glass. No longer Malo but ‘M’. My son has been rebadged. M.

  ‘You should have phoned,’ I tell him. ‘You could have stayed here.’

  ‘Didn’t want to disturb you. Didn’t know what you might be up to.’

  He lets the sentence hang in the air.

  ‘I could ask the same,’ I say.

  ‘But I just told you. Casino, something to eat, something to drink, another couple of twirls on the roulette table, then bye-byes.’ He counts each of these little adventures on his thick fingers and then looks up. ‘You want to check? See the receipts?’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Just wondering.’ He gets up and starts to prowl around the living room, pausing to stare at the odd photo, inspecting my collection of paperbacks, my DVDs, my music. I know he’s playing with me, building up a certain tension. It’s a trick Berndt used to use all the time in his darker scripts. The victim was always a woman. The camera would linger on her face until the moment came when she broke. This would usually be the cue for some kind of confession. This isn’t going to happen to me, I tell myself. Never.

  H has ended up at the window. He has his back to me. Something in the street below seems to have caught his attention.

  ‘I sent Jessie to Salisbury the other day,’ he says. ‘To look for some stuff she wants for that room upstairs.’

  Salisbury. I briefly close my eyes. Watch out for yourself. Shit.

  ‘And?’ I say brightly. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Yeah. She got it sorted quicker than she thought. Had a bit of time on her hands.’ He turns round at last. ‘So where do you think she went?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Should I?’

  ‘Place called the White Hart. Place she dropped you the other week. And you know what? She popped in, had a word with the bloke behind the bar. Good girl, Jessie. Been on the team for a while.’

  ‘What team?’

  ‘My team. The top team. The A team. Is there any other?’

  I ignore the dig. I know exactly what’s coming next. Jessie warned me in the pub at the weekend. I should have sussed it. I should have thought it through. In a way she was trying to help me, trying to head off this scene. Watch out for yourself. I should have been bolder, cannier. We should have talked.

  ‘Did she go for lunch?’

  ‘Of course she fucking didn’t.’

  ‘Just a drink, then? One for the road? Something soft?’

  H isn’t amused. He leaves the window and steps towards me. He’s very close now. I can smell mints on his breath.

  ‘Your problem, gal, is that people remember you. Bloke behind the bar turns out to be a fan. That’s nice unless you’re dicking someone else around, especially if that someone happens to be me. Are we on the same page here or do I have to spell it out?’

  I say nothing, telling myself there’s too much at stake. H is back beside the window, checking the street again. Then he spots his son.

  ‘M is back early,’ he says. ‘That makes you one lucky girl.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s over. Done. Sorted. We’ll never mention it again. Deal?’

  I don’t know what to say. No script of mine ever ended this way. H is beyond clever. He holds all the aces, including my son. No wonder they went to the casino.

  ‘You mean Malo is back early,’ I say.

  H is laughing. It’s not a pleasant sound. At last he turns back from the window.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I mean M.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Malo joins us in the apartment. He missed Clemenza by minutes at the courier agency, which didn’t please him, but he’s made contact by phone and he’s fixed to see her this afternoon before he and his dad go back home.

  This news floors me completely. Home. Flixcombe fucking Manor. Malo has spotted the artwork on the table and wants to talk me through it. I notice that H doesn’t offer him any champagne but is keen to top up my own glass. Our troubles, he seems to be saying again, are over. We’ve had a bit of a ruck, he’s said his piece, we know where we stand, and that’s the end of it. This begs one or two of the larger questions but for the time being I have no choice but to listen to my son.

  He’s explaining why this element works and this one doesn’t. He’s pointing out why some images are a lot stronger than others. And he’s agreeing with his father that the lads in Yeovil have got to do a whole lot better. This is a new Malo, a Malo I’ve never seen in action before. He must have picked up a lot of this stuff in barely days and yet his grasp of the language is genuinely impressive. But what’s also obvious is that he shares H’s steeliness in negotiations, in business. There’s no question of compromise, of accepting second best. The presentation has to be tone-perfect. It has to be exactly right.

  I wander through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. The Krug has gone to my head and it’s a moment or two before I realize that H has followed me.

  ‘No hard feelings?’

  I shoot him a look. At least he’s not calling me ‘gal’.

  ‘This isn’t the time or the place,’ I tell him. ‘And you know it.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For …’ I shrug. I feel utterly hopeless. There’s nothing I can say, nowhere I can go. H has ordered a punishment beating to mark Mitch’s card, exactly the way that gangsters do, and Sayid may yet die. Most of this appears to be my fault and that makes me feel a whole lot worse. In the meantime, artfully, he seems to be holding my son hostage. Not only that but Malo is very visibly thrilled by the prospect. What the fuck have I done, I wonder. First Berndt, and now someone altogether more terrifying.

  I pour Malo’s tea and step past H to get back to the living room. When I suggest to my son that he might like to spend a night or two in his own bed he shakes his head. Wrong time. Too busy. Too fraught. He has to get the Persephone project up and running.

  Barely weeks ago this would have been music to my ears. My son engaged. My son motivated. My son eyeballing a learning curve steep enough to delight any parent. Instead, though, I can think of nothing but getting him back. That and what’s left of Sayid’s face once H’s thugs had filled their boots.

  H and Malo leave within the hour. We have a civilized chat about where next for the Persephone project and I’m absolutely certain that Malo has no idea of what’s happening between his mum and dad. Much of this, to be fair, is to H’s credit. I’ve been around actors all my working life but I’ve never met anyone with H’s gift for crashing the emotional gearbox without stripping a cog or two. Sunshine and rain, I think. The blackest of moods one moment, Mr Affable the next. Probably bipolar.

  H and Malo gone, I collapse on the sofa. When I call Mitch, he’s at the hospital. I ask about Sayid. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Still out.’

  ‘Unconscious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what are they telling you?’

  ‘It’s early days. He has hairline fractures to his skull and his brain has swollen but it’s not bad enough to operate. I think that means they won’t take the risk. Not at his best doesn’t really cover it.’

  This tiny spark of humour I take to be a good sign. When things get truly horrible, as I know only too well, there’s nothing left but the darker jokes.

  ‘What about his face?’

  ‘They say they can rebuild most of it. Teeth. Nose. Cheekbones. Jaw. That’s if he survives.’

/>   ‘And the police?’

  ‘Hang on …’ I picture Mitch leaving Sayid’s bedside. The rest of our conversation needs to be away from listening ears. ‘You’re still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The police, Mitch says, have started behaving like human beings. The case has escalated up the food chain and is now in the hands of a Detective Inspector. Mercifully, she’s a woman. She appears to be ready to accept that Mitch may not have kicked his partner half to death, which comes as a relief, and she’s also pursuing a number of lines of enquiry with some vigour.

  House-to-house calls, alas, have yielded no sighting of an unfamiliar vehicle going up the cul-de-sac and a proper CCTV trawl is pointless without clues on a likely target. Officers are in the process of contacting train drivers in case they might have noticed a parked car or van at the foot of the embankment and the enquiry team may commission posters for display on stations along the line asking the travelling public to come forward with any information. The forensic team are still trying to tease some kind of timeline out of the scene while analysis on Sayid’s phone hasn’t thrown up any usage since the call to my number.

  ‘They think the phone got binned after that. They can track these things if they’re switched on but there’s been no signal.’ He pauses. I can hear a lift door clanging shut in the background. ‘You know something really sick?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’m starting to wonder if Sayid would get even better service if he’d died. The DI’s virtually admitted it. We’re talking GBH, maybe even attempted murder, but these attacks are ten a penny in London. Homicide would have moved things along. That’s her phrase, not mine.’

  I tell him I’m confused. The work the DI’s already commissioned seems pretty impressive to me.

  ‘That’s because she knows I’m a journo. The Met aren’t shy when it comes to getting a good press.’