by Mick Herron
People brushed past, their voices thick with beer. It wasn’t far off ten o’clock, and was cold, damp and dark, but boys in short-sleeved shirts were just warming up.
Her home landline switched to voicemail, so she left a quick message then tried Russ’s mobile. When he answered there was background noise: jukebox, voices, drink being taken. ‘Sarah?’
‘You’re in the pub.’
‘I’m in the pub. Where are you?’
‘Not in a pub. I’m still in Newcastle, though.’
‘You’re still what?’
‘Still at the hotel.’
‘Still? Why haven’t you checked out? Jesus, sorry, I should have – what happened? Was it her?’
‘I don’t know, Russ.’
‘Sarah? What do you mean – you couldn’t tell? Oh fuck, I’m saying this wrong. I’ve had a few pints. Was it awful? I’m so sorry, darling.’
She could feel tears starting, and didn’t want to cry, not here on the street. She swallowed. ‘It was awful, yes. Horrible. The woman – she’d been in the water, Russ. I couldn’t tell if it was Zoë or not.’
‘But didn’t they – wasn’t there evidence? I mean, she wasn’t naked or anything, was she?’
‘She was wearing Zoë’s clothes. Or clothes that could have been Zoë’s. And she had Zoë’s wallet and stuff. I told them it was Zoë.’
‘You told them that? But you’re still not sure? Oh fuck, look, give me a moment, I’ll go outside where I can hear you properly.’
‘No. No, don’t. I’m all right, Russ. Don’t worry. But I’m going to stay another night, okay?’
‘You’re going to what?’
She couldn’t tell if he hadn’t heard, or just not liked what he’d heard. ‘I’m staying another night. I’ll be back tomorrow evening, Russ. Very soon. But I can’t leave yet. Not until I know what happened.’
There was a sudden squirt of noise: a collision of some sort, a squawked apology.
‘Russ?’
‘Jesus, look, I’ve just spilled this gentleman’s drink, I’d better – yes, yes, sorry, I’ll get you another. Sarah? Call me back, okay?’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Russ. I love you.’
‘Sarah. Love you. Look, I’m really sorry, I’ll just –’
The apology wasn’t for her. The phone cut off, and she was still here, still in the cold damp night, still alone, though surrounded by happy strangers.
Someone said, ‘Grab a granny night, is it?’
She realized she was heading away from the hotel – into clubland, by the look of it – so abruptly switched direction. And it wasn’t dark after all, she registered. There were lights all around; the beautiful blurred runniness of city neon, splashing reflections in windows and puddles. She’d forgotten what this was like. Even when her eyes cleared – the tears not falling, but soaking back into her – the colours remained a liquid rainbow in the air. She wished Zoë were with her. She wished she could point these lights out to Zoë, and dare her to find them less than beautiful.
In the dark the Bolbec resembled a trailer for one of those films in which misguided travellers check into their last night on earth. It was hard to dispel such thoughts once they’ve occurred, but Sarah did her best. The lobby was empty. It was after ten, and she was tired but not sleepy. She decided to have a drink.
Two men stood at the bar when she entered, and both gave her appraising looks without bothering to pretend they weren’t. She almost turned and walked back out – in some situations, too few men was as bad as too many – but Barry was already reaching for the Sauvignon. She was beginning to wonder how long his shifts were.
It wasn’t clear how she scored on these men’s charts, but a drink was a drink. And the fire, she noted, was lit.
‘Long day?’ Barry asked. Then: ‘I’m assuming you want a white?’
‘I’ll get that for the lady,’ one of the men said.
‘Thank you. But I’d rather get my own.’
‘Rubbish,’ he said. Apile of change sat next to his whisky glass, and he began fingering coins Barry’s way. ‘What’s the damage on a large white, Baz?’
‘Behave, Derek,’ Barry told him, pouring the wine. ‘It’s on your room, Ms Tucker.’ He slid the glass across.
Ms Tucker.’
‘Thanks, Barry.’
Derek’s mate snorted, and Derek said, ‘Now then, pet. No need to burn your bra.’
Sarah opened her mouth to retort, but Barry got there first.
‘That TV series where the guy falls asleep and wakes up in ’73? They got your life backwards, Derek. You should write and complain.’
Derek’s mate snorted again, and nearly fell off his stool.
Derek looked sheepish. ‘No offence meant, pet.’
‘None taken, lamb,’ she assured him.
Barry was pretty good, though. Wringing a laugh and an apology from a situation which might have turned nasty.
She told him, ‘Put the next round on my room too, Barry. Excuse me, gentlemen, I need a comfy seat.’
‘Mind the dragon,’ she thought she heard as she headed for the sofa by the fireplace. Didn’t get the reference, but understood it once she arrived.
Slumped in one of the rattan chairs, hunkered so low he couldn’t be seen from behind, was Gerard. On the table was a bottle of Macallan; its level below the label, its optic plonked next to it like an amputated digit. At lunchtime, she remembered, she’d wondered if he’d been drunk. There was no doubting it now.
‘Thought I told you to fuck off,’ he said without looking round.
‘Told you the same once, I remember,’ she said, lowering herself on to the sofa. ‘Didn’t fucking work.’
‘Sarah. Christ.’ He nearly attempted to stand, but sensibly gave up the idea. ‘Thought you were somebody else.’
‘Pleased to hear it.’
‘No, really, I – oh, hell.’ He swallowed what was left in his glass. ‘Those buggers by the bar still there?’
She didn’t look round. ‘Yes. Been making a nuisance of themselves?’
‘Seem to think I must want to join them. Seem to think I’d rather listen to them than sit by myself.’
‘I’m sure you put them wise.’
‘Where are you going?’
Sarah had regained her feet. Now she laughed. ‘Gerard? You’re definitely giving the vibe of someone who doesn’t want company.’
‘That’s for their benefit. Stay a bit. Finish your drink.’
She sat, glad she hadn’t needed to find her own reason for doing so.
He said, ‘Can’t get over that coincidence. Picking up your friend’s card.’
‘It’s a biggie, all right.’
‘What are the odds?’
He wasn’t slurring, but was woollier than she’d known him. She wondered if the bottle had been full when he’d started. Then added what he’d drunk at lunchtime, multiplied it by how much he’d put away last night, and decided it didn’t matter.
She said, ‘Higher than I’m comfortable with.’
‘You think there’s something funny going on?’
She was about to reply, but had a sudden flashback to the body on the slab, the leather jacket, the tray of possessions that didn’t matter any more. Her mouth filled, and she had to swallow. She lifted her glass to disguise the moment, but it didn’t work.
Gerard said, ‘What’s the matter? Lost touch with her?’
She hadn’t told Gerard that Zoë was dead. Events had intervened when they’d discussed her. So he didn’t know . . . unless he did.
Either way, she wasn’t about to tell him.
‘You might say that,’ she said.
She felt like she’d just made a dirty joke on her friend’s grave.
‘What was she doing here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And where is she now?’
Sarah shrugged.
‘There’s a lot you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’
‘I think she stum
bled over some of her own history.’
‘How very fascinating. Can you repeat that in English?’
‘Would you like a refill?’
And this was Barry, who’d arrived so quietly he might have been a butler. He had wine bottle in hand, and was tilting it towards Sarah’s glass; was pouring it before she had the chance to reply.
‘Sorry about the guys back there. They mean well.’
Gerard said, ‘Was there ever a phrase so geared to have you run away screaming?’
‘But you know what I mean.’
‘Thanks, Barry,’ Sarah said. ‘We do.’
‘Shall I leave the bottle?’ Sarah shook her head at the same moment Gerard nodded, so he gave a rueful grin and set it next to the whisky. ‘You don’t have to drink it all,’ he said.
‘That ever happen?’
But he was heading back to the bar.
‘He seems a nice bloke,’ Sarah said.
‘Naturally,’ Gerard said. ‘That’s his job.’ He leaned forward heavily, and replenished his glass with the precise movements of the visually impaired. ‘“Stumbled over her own history.” Meaning what?’
‘Something came out of her past. I think.’
‘What kind of something?’
‘There was a man. A couple of years ago.’
‘Oh God. Not one of those stories, is it?’
‘Gerard –’
‘Unmarried woman hitting the change. Then up rips some young heartbreaker and –’
‘Gerard? Shut up.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, without really saying it. ‘Floor’s yours.’
‘His name was Alan Talmadge. Some of the time anyway. And he wasn’t a heartbreaker, Gerard, he was a killer. He killed two women Zoë knew of.’
Sarah reached for her glass, hand shaking. Zoë had never adequately described Talmadge. Had referred to him, instead, through the effect he’d had on other people; on those women, not a million miles from Gerard’s brutal summing up, who’d allowed him to slip into their lives, and fill a space previously reserved for their own desperation. Lives he’d then ended.
Her wine felt colder, as if the temperature in the bar had dropped.
Gerard said, ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Zoë was.’
‘His name doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘Should it?’
‘Killed two women? That’s as good as Big Brother for getting your name in the papers. And if it was only a couple of years –’
‘He was never caught.’
Gerard said, ‘Ah.’
‘Never even looked for, far as I know. The two women – they were thought to be accident victims. Zoë was sure they were murdered. But they both looked like accidents.’
Gerard said ‘Ah’ again, at a different pitch.
‘I believed her.’
‘Well, of course you did. You’re her friend.’
And oh joy, there it was: the male battle cry in all its naked vigour. Not What would you know, bitch?; nor even Don’t worry your pretty head about it. Just Well, of course you did. Words to accompany a pat on the head.
‘You’d have believed her too.’
‘I dare say,’ Gerard said. ‘It doesn’t take much to convince me. Just hard, incontrovertible evidence.’
He made to drink, and looked down in surprise on finding his glass empty.
She emptied her own. ‘Did you really find her card?’
He looked left, then right, demonstrably wondering where this was coming from. Then at her. ‘I can show you if you like. ’Supstairs. In my room.’
‘Really.’
‘It’s upstairs,’ he said more clearly.
‘In your room, I heard you. That’s not what I meant. Did you really find it? Or did Zoë give it to you?’
‘You think I’ve met your friend?’
‘I’m asking if you did.’
‘No, Sarah. I didn’t meet her.’
Drunk or not, he gave her a solid, straight-eyed look saying that. He was, of course, a very rich businessman, not one of whom on this sweet earth ever got where he was without lying. But she didn’t think he lied.
She shook her head. Reached for the bottle, and splashed more wine into her glass. Then excused herself, and headed to the loo.
When she got back, Derek and his friend had gone. It was past eleven. Barry was emptying the till. ‘I’m supposed to close. But if you want anything –’
‘I don’t, thanks. And he shouldn’t.’
‘Well, if you need a hand . . .’ He did something with his eyebrows that conveyed the difficulty of steering heavy objects upstairs without help.
‘If it comes to that, he can sleep where he lands.’
Barry smiled a goodnight, and she returned to the fireplace.
The fire was dying, but still radiating a steady glow. It made the rest of the room feel darker, even more so when Barry turned the light over the bar off before leaving. Sarah picked up her glass. The wine stung her taste buds, as if she’d eaten a strawberry since her last sip. She looked at Gerard, who sat immobile, staring into the low flame. She couldn’t tell whether he’d drunk more in her absence.
‘Are you all right?’
His gaze left the fire and locked on her. It held no recognition.
‘Gerard?’
Somewhere, a door closed with a bang. She started. He didn’t.
‘Gerard?’
He said, ‘I have a son.’
She couldn’t have heard that right. She stared.
‘We have a son. He’s eight months old.’
‘Gerard.’ Even as she spoke, she knew her words would be wrong; that she was heading down a cul-de-sac it wouldn’t be easy to back out of. ‘That’s wonderful. That’s –’
‘He’s called Zachary.’ She might have been background static. Gerard wasn’t talking to her; he was talking to his glass, whose half-inch golden pool threw back images she couldn’t guess at. ‘Sometimes when I stand over his . . . his incubator, I imagine him smiling at me. Eight months, you’d expect a smile, wouldn’t you?’
The fire flickered, and shadows scampered into corners.
‘Something bad happened,’ Sarah said flatly.
‘He has no arms,’ Gerard said. ‘But then, he has no legs, either. You know what he looks like? He looks like a ping-pong ball balanced on a boiled egg. And I look at him, and I know I’m supposed to love him. And I do. I love him. But I want him to die. Because he’s not living a life, not in any sense you or I would recognize. He’ll never know what it’s like to . . . be ordinary. To walk by a river, or have a job, or drink brandy, or . . . or anything. Even stay in a crappy hotel like this. Anything can seem like a pleasure, if you compare it to a life utterly bereft of possibility.’
He put his glass down, and emptied the bottle into it. It was a measure beyond healthy. It was a measure on steroids.
She said, ‘Do they know …’
‘Do they know what?’
She’d never heard this from Gerard before: genuine aggression. He lived his life – that part she’d witnessed him living – wrongfooting the foolish and charming his targets, but aggression was new. ‘Why,’ she said. ‘Do they know why?’
‘It happens.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘It happens.’
The male wall. Tell her about it. Beyond this point, we don’t discuss.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
‘If I thought you were responsible, that wouldn’t be enough.’
For some reason, she found herself recalling what he’d said at lunchtime. There you go, he’d told John M. Wright. The terrible vengeance of a righteous God. We can all learn something from that.
She looked for more words she already knew wouldn’t help. ‘There are –’
‘Don’t. Don’t tell me there are . . . benefits. Or procedures. Or no way of knowing about quality of life. Don’t tell me any of that self-serving platitudinous bullshit.’
‘I wasn’t going to.�
��
‘My son would be better off dead. That’s not self-pitying rationalization. He would be better. Off. Dead.’
His voice had risen, and for a moment afterwards an echo ricocheted around the bar, stirring ghosts of ancient conversations and long-forgotten sorrows.
Then he said, ‘I was a practising Catholic, did you know that?’
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Paula still is. That’s the funny thing.’
‘You’ve lost your faith?’
And now he looked at her, with eyes that were dark absences. ‘Lose it? No, I didn’t lose it, Sarah. I nailed it to a tree and set fire to it.’
‘Gerard –’
‘I’d like to be alone now.’
She wanted to ask if he was sure, but he was sure. If she was Gerard, she’d be sure too.
He raised his glass to his lips. Shadows from the dying fire danced on the walls as she left.
9
Next morning she knocked on Gerard’s door, quietly, so as not to disturb him – why do we do that? She knocked again loudly, but there was no reply. Perhaps his hangover had woken him early, and he’d gone for a walk to shake it off. Or he was still in the bar. Or he’d hanged himself in his bathroom.
She’d never seen Gerard like he’d been last night. But then, she had lots of friends she’d never seen in that state. With Gerard, it was more a case of: she’d never imagined him as other than full-on Gerard. Annoyed, irritated, condescending: he could be all those things and still be Gerard of Oz, larger than life and louder than loud. But heartbreak turned out to be the man behind the curtain. She’d never imagined anything so ordinary pulling Gerard’s levers. Not that his heartbreak took an ordinary shape – his poor child, poor Zachary. Poor Paula. Poor all of them. But she had to remember, too, that none of this meant there wasn’t something else going on. Gerard could be crippled by sorrow, but that didn’t wipe out the Zoë connection.
You think I’ve met your friend? No, Sarah. I didn’t meet her.
