by Knight, Ali
69
The Wolf watched the clean-up from the roof of an old oil storage depot. From his position flat down on his belly he could see the panicked movements of groups of people, the masks and costumes littering the dock, balloons freed from their interior home drifting skywards on the wind. The prone body of Jonas on the tarmac didn’t move.
A close-run thing, but then it wouldn’t be the first time. Sylvie had shot the wrong man and as he fell the Wolf had grabbed the bag. He felt the weight of the backpack heavy on his shoulders.
He had stared at Florence, looked into her pale eyes as he had pulled her over the wall. She had not recognised him. He wondered whether the tilt of her head, the line of her jaw, the way she moved, would spark some feeling in him, but they hadn’t. The past really meant nothing to him. Florence could have belonged to anyone, anyone at all. He had left the bewildered children where they stood, knowing someone would be along to rescue them. But it wouldn’t be their mother.
He watched as Kelly was quickly frogmarched away from the wall by Christos and some other men. Her howl of anguish at being separated from her children had carried over the wall towards him. He felt a familiar sensation, one he’d tried to dislodge for the past eight years and had never managed. He felt bad for Kelly’s suffering, the bundles of cash in the rucksack not giving him the euphoria he had long dreamed of. He climbed down the metal ladder and managed to track Christos and Kelly along the dock towards the Saracen. He had to split then, as he heard the first of the many police cars appearing at the port.
70
Georgie and Mo drove back to the docks, a boulder lodged in Georgie’s throat that expanded the closer they got to the river. She tried phoning Kelly again. It went straight to voicemail. She turned on the radio and got the first reports on the news bulletins. The situation was still confused: a shooting at a children’s charity event … one male victim, as yet unnamed … It had a ghoulish melodrama to it. The head of Lost Souls, Anila, was being interviewed. By the time they drove into the car park and saw the incident vans, TV crews and the press, Georgie’s world as she knew it was beginning to collapse.
In the aftermath of the shooting the police had cordoned off a large part of the docks and evacuated the customs offices, a number of warehouses and Malamatos Shipping’s offices. These areas were being declared safe bit by bit and now staff were streaming back into their offices. Georgie and Mo hurried into the building, now cleared by police and operations resumed as best they could. Angus was at the top of the stairs as Georgie came up; he took her by the elbow and steered her and Mo into the stairwell.
‘One question. Why were you talking to this guy from Southampton?’ He looked grey and old, a spot of blood on his lip from where he’d been chewing it.
‘The tip-off said there was a connection between Malamatos operations here and Southampton—’
‘Why is he here? Why did you bring him up here?’
‘He offered to come, he saved us a trip—’
‘He offered? Mo told me that this guy’s a convicted murderer, that he offered to come halfway across the country to talk to you. Is that right?’
Georgie felt the contents of her stomach begin to move unpleasantly. ‘Yes, but I had no reason to assume there was a problem … And then we went to pursue the wood lead and we, I mean I, was going to talk to him again later.’
Angus raked his hand through his hair. ‘So he was just left here at the docks?’
Georgie nodded. ‘Yes. It’s a public area, I don’t understand—’
‘This bit is very important. Did you at any time mention Christos’s wife?’ Georgie opened and closed her mouth. ‘Because if you did, you’ve blown a witness protection cover. Kelly put that man who you were interviewing this morning in jail for murder. The police are all over me. If they think we led him to her, the shit is already over our heads. You know how much it costs to redo a witness protection cover? It’s thousands of pounds of public money, notwithstanding the upheaval to her and her family’s life.’
Georgie thought she heard Mo swear under his breath. Maybe it was a prayer.
‘Give me something I can use, Georgie. Tell me you found something useful that broke this case from him coming up here.’
He was looking at her, pleading. Her boss was pleading not only for her job but for his own. And she couldn’t offer a thing.
‘Where did you find him? What’s the trail? Tell me every I is dotted, every T is crossed on this?’
Mo and Angus were looking at her. She had been put on the trail to disaster by her family. They had laid down the crumbs in the forest, and she had pursued them as far as they led.
‘Mo had nothing to do with this, it was my decision alone.’
That’s when Angus got angry. ‘You’re not in a position to be saying that kind of thing!’
‘Where’s Ricky now?’ asked Georgie.
‘In police custody.’ Angus pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘They’re trying to piece together what happened at the play centre. There are conflicting reports about who had a gun, and whether he was involved. They want to interview you. They’re waiting in the meeting room upstairs.’
Shame lanced her. She had bathed in Angus’s approval and his attention and it had been brutally removed. She had pushed the edges of what was permissible in order to impress him and had sown the seeds of her own destruction.
She turned to go but Angus gestured up the stairs. ‘Go that way, it’s quicker and you won’t have to see anyone.’ She stared up the echoing staircase, then looked back at Mo. He was staring at her helplessly. She took the stairs two at a time because she couldn’t bear to be the object of that look any more. She came out on the second floor and heard the staccato chatter of a police radio from one of the meeting rooms. Her courage failed her. The police interview would signal the end of her career. There was no way back from this and she knew it. She walked right past the door without even looking in, slipped down the back stairs and out of the back door.
The wind off the river sliced through her like a scythe. She walked behind a low building to where she had chained up her bike what seemed like a million years ago now. She would delay the axe falling for that little bit longer if she could. It was human nature, after all.
She cycled away.
71
Christos hurried Kelly along, his grip on her arm a vice. People rushed past them in the other direction but they kept on. He had to half carry her, her disappointment at another failed escape stripping her of the will to fight.
They walked a long way down the dock, past the Malamatos offices and the customs block. The afternoon was still and cold, the wind had died and the sky was clear. He led her towards the Saracen. She tried to pause as she stared up at the huge ship, but he gripped her arm tighter and pulled her up the gangway and through the bowels of the ship, along corridors and down to a lower level until they arrived in the ship’s galley, a warren of stainless-steel units and corners buttressed by fridges. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his jacket and locked one of her wrists to the safety rail that ran round the edges of the units.
She turned to face him. ‘I know about the baby. I know all about going to Brazil to buy a son.’
He didn’t reply, had pulled out his phone, was scrolling through numbers.
‘Christos, think of the children. The children you have now. You love Yannis and Florence – why can’t they be enough?’
‘Enough?’ Christos looked up from his phone aghast, almost angry. ‘Look around you, Kelly. Six hundred thousand tonnes of metal, one of the biggest fleets in western Europe, it’s not a question of enough. That doesn’t even come into it. You’re asking the wrong question. It’s about what’s possible. I’ve told you before. Nothing is impossible.’
‘So what happens now?’ She pulled on the handcuff so that it chinked against the metal. ‘You won’t divorce me, so what accident am I to have? That’s how you’re going to get rid of me, isn’t it? Me dying allows you to bring Sylvi
e and the new baby in. Nothing’s impossible, eh?’
‘A family line is not disposable.’
‘You set out to meet me, didn’t you? You chose me because you wanted to keep me close, because you wondered whether one day Michael might come back. You came into that restaurant where I was working, down on my luck, banished from my home town and my friends, and you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. You never loved me at all, did you?’
‘That day in the restaurant wasn’t the first time I saw you. I heard you sing one time in Southampton. You made an impression. And then later, after Michael and Amber were gone, I saw you sing in a pub in the Elephant and Castle. You were so vulnerable you were completely compelling, thinking of your dead child and your husband. I realised then, that if you could make space in there – in your broken heart – for me, it would be the ultimate proof of love. And I got my proof of love.’
‘And this is how you treat someone you claim to love.’
‘Most men are competitive, Michael and I more than most. It adds to the excitement when you win.’
‘Michael’s twice the man you are.’
‘Here’s a thing. Where is Michael now? He didn’t come back for you, did he? He came back for money. He dropped you down that wall to save himself, to keep his bag of cash. Think about that, Kelly. He’s a worthless piece of shit. I felt less bad about the things I’ve done because you were used to it.’
‘You’re a disgusting human being who doesn’t know how to love.’
His face clouded over. ‘I loved you. More than you know. We got married and you moved in, but then reality hit. I expected you to move on, but you didn’t – you couldn’t. Your mind was fragile, you loved and needed the kids more than me, I could tell that. And then later, you would look at me in that way, that way you’re doing now. After everything I did for you, I didn’t like that at all.’
‘You’re a sadistic, cruel—’
‘Yes, I’m a perfectionist, yes, I expect and demand total dedication. I’m not going to apologise for that.’
‘Bullshit,’ Kelly spat. ‘You love Sylvie because of how she’s prepared to change herself, bend herself to your every whim. That’s not a wife, that’s not even a mistress – that’s a living doll.’
‘I want what every husband wants – attention. But yours was always elsewhere, locked in your grief and the what-ifs of the past. It was a little rebuke to me every single day of my life. However successful I was paled into insignificance next to my dying marriage.’
‘Oh you’ve got attention all right. Sylvie creeps around our apartment at night, examining every aspect of our lives, she stands over the children – your children – in the dark. If you’ve ever dreamed about her, it’s because she’s really there.’
‘I know. I like it that she’s there in the flat at night.’
‘She’s sick, Christos, she’s sick in the head—’
‘She just has the guts to go all out to get what she wants. She’s ballsy and fun and there are no limits to her ambition.’
‘If she wants you she can have you. Let me go.’
‘That’s the problem, that’s what you can’t see. Men don’t like to be made to feel it.’
‘Feel what?’
‘The failure. This way I’ll never have to face that failure. The failure of our marriage. I won’t be reminded of it.’
‘What way? What way, Christos?’
‘This way I’ll never have to let you go.’
‘Christos?’
But he turned away and walked out of the kitchen.
72
Kelly rummaged through drawers, trying to find something she could use to prise open the handcuffs. She pulled baking trays to the floor from overhead cupboards that were within her reach. She shouted for a while, until she heard footsteps on the metal of the corridor.
Sylvie appeared. She walked forward and regarded Kelly while leaning provocatively against the stainless-steel kitchen island, then used a second pair of handcuffs to chain Kelly’s free hand to the safety rail. ‘You know, I always wanted to be an actress,’ Sylvie began. ‘I got out of the ’burbs and moved to New York. I was focused, I really put a hundred per cent effort into it. And I was good, really good actually. But I had one weakness, I was told, I didn’t work well with other people. I didn’t like it when they stole the limelight, when I had to let them shine. The best show I ever did was a one-woman performance where the spotlight was always on me.’
‘Let me go.’
‘I’m a good actress because I’m good at imitating other people. I’m good at getting inside their heads. It’s a challenge.’
Kelly looked at Sylvie in surprise. Her voice had suddenly changed. The American accent was gone, replaced by a flat London tone.
‘I really get at what makes them who they are.’
Kelly backed up against the island as Sylvie came towards her and began to undo the top button on Kelly’s dress. Kelly squirmed, but Sylvie didn’t stop. She undid the next one.
‘I’ve studied you in detail, Kelly—’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Kelly retorted. ‘Creeping round my house at night, trying on my clothes, invading the privacy of my kids, I’ve seen it all. You’ve got an obsession, things have gone too far – get off me.’
Sylvie had unlocked one of the handcuffs and was pulling Kelly’s black dress over her head and down her arm, before locking her to the rail again and starting on the next handcuff.
‘I’ve been to your flat, I’ve seen how much you’ve studied me.’
Having removed Kelly’s dress, Sylvie folded it and put it on the counter. She knelt down in front of Kelly as Kelly tried to kick her. Her pump flew off as she did so. Sylvie smiled. ‘One less job to do.’ She grabbed Kelly’s ankle and began gently to pull the tights down Kelly’s thighs.
‘Stop that right now.’
‘I’ve only just begun. Of all the parts I’ve ever played, this is the one I think I’ll relish the most.’
Kelly felt the cold of the ship seeping into her bones. ‘Don’t you need to be with the surrogate mother of your child? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss the birth. Maybe once you become a mother you’ll start to have some feelings.’ Sylvie narrowed her eyes at that. ‘You need to enjoy your last days of freedom. A new baby takes it out of you. It changes you, Sylvie. Are you ready for that?’
Sylvie smiled again. ‘I like that. I really like that idea.’
Kelly snorted. ‘God, you’re dumb. There’s something you don’t know so I’ll tell you, one mother to another. Christos demands total dedication. Your attention is going to be on your new baby, not on him. He won’t like it. He won’t like that at all. You think I’m standing in the way of your perfect relationship. But it’s your son who’s going to do that, and he’s never going away.’
Sylvie dropped the tights on top of the dress.
‘Did you enjoy pretending to be me? Does it give you a kick? More to the point, does it turn him on? Is that what this is? Because you’ll do anything to please him, won’t you?’
When Kelly was down to her bra and pants and shivering in the unheated kitchen, Sylvie came at her with a pair of scissors.
73
Georgie wanted to climb. When things got too much for her she wanted to escape. She would go home to get her kit, get to the water tower, climb the steepest, most challenging route till her muscles burned and her bones ached and she could overlay the battery acid rolling through her body with the lactic acid of physical exertion instead. Then she would get falling-down drunk. She squeezed the bike into the garage and opened the front door to find Dad and Matt crowding round her. They’d heard about the shooting at the docks on the TV news.
Their concern for her radiated out in waves. She was made to sit in a chair, she was given a cup of tea. Dad gave her a hug, his thin arms tight around her, his worry about her safety out of all proportion to the actual risk. ‘If anything had happened to you I’d never have forgiven myself.’
There were exclamations all round, her dad and Matt urging her to tell them what the matter was.
‘I think I’ve lost my job.’
‘No, that can’t be.’
‘I’ve fucked up so badly. You have no idea.’
Matt patted her on the back with a kind of fatality, as if he had always expected this outcome. ‘Come to Fabric with Ryan and Shelley and me tonight. We’ll have a big night out, let your hair down, it’s what you need.’
She struggled out of Dad’s arms and stood up. ‘No, I need to think things through.’
They crowded after her into the kitchen, where she fired up the ancient computer that took up half the small workspace. She had typed Ricky’s name into Google before she had phoned him, but now for the first time she read all the reports of the trial she could in detail. It was then that she found reference to a woman called Kelsey Bale, a witness whose evidence put Ricky in jail. Kelly, Kelsey. It was her, Georgie was sure. She had heard that people who changed their names often kept the same initial, it was a familiarity they found comforting, a reminder of their old selves. She turned to her dad. ‘I overreached myself, I tried too hard.’
He protested loudly. ‘Nonsense! You can never try too hard. You’re good at your job, you love your job! Your mum would have been so proud of what you’re doing, Georgie.’
She started shouting at him because she was angry at herself. ‘I thought I could take short cuts, but you can’t in life, there are no short cuts.’ She had tried to overcompensate, to make up for deficiencies at home, and look where it had got her. The doorbell rang and for a horrid moment she thought it might be the police, chasing her down for an explanation. The irony of them coming here for her after the number of times they’d called at the house over the years was not lost on her. Matt went to answer it. ‘Who’s that? I can’t face anyone.’
