by Thomas Emson
Lawton knew the lads he worked with weren’t layabouts or scum.
Some of them might be mouthy. A few got into trouble when they drank too much on R&R. But no one else did the job they did. No one else went to hell, came out, and was expected to behave normally.
No one else – not even cops like McCall – put their lives on the line like those lads did.
Things got worse when they invaded Iraq, McCall raging against Blair, against Bush, against “all the cowards who bowed down before them and let them walk into a free, independent country”.
Lawton pointed out that Iraq was hardly free.
“’Course they are, Jake. Seen it on TV. Women walking around in jeans. None of this Arab nonsense. They’re like us.”
“Those would be the same women raped by Saddam’s sons if they take a fancy to them, then. The same women whose fathers and brothers and sons are tortured if the say a word against Saddam. But that’s okay. As long as they’ve got jeans, that’s okay.”
“Bollocks,” said McCall. “What do you know? You’re a soldier.
Brainwashed.”
He couldn’t win, so he left it. And Jenna left him when he went to war. It wasn’t that he wanted to go to war. It wasn’t that he supported Blair or Bush – it was his job, that was all.
His job was soldiering and he was going off to soldier.
McCall had railed against him that morning on the phone. It was a curse Lawton came back alive from Iraq, he said, wheedling his way back into Jenna’s life.
“You should’ve left my girl alone,” he said. “She’s into all that weird, vampire stuff. You could’ve at least got her out of that.”
“She’s twenty-nine, Mark. She makes her own decisions.”
Silence fell. McCall breathed deep, rasping breaths. Lawton’s nape prickled.
McCall said, “She was twenty-nine. She made her own decisions. Was. Made. My” – he began to cry – “baby’s dead, she’s dead. She’ll always be ‘was’, now, always be past, always be gone.”
Grief gouged at Lawton’s guts.
“I’m sorry, Mark,” he said, “I really am. If the police don’t get who’s responsible, I – I will. I promise.”
Fraser Lithgow played on Lawton’s mind: the leer, the swagger, the spiked hair.
“You’re responsible, Lawton. It’s you,” said McCall.
Lawton listened to him weeping. And when the tears stopped, McCall cursed him again and then slammed down the phone.
* * *
He knocked once on the CCTV monitoring room and entered.
He went to say hi to Lisa and Brian, but stopped himself. Cops filled the room. A couple of uniforms, and two suits. A balding man in his late thirties stood up and glared at Lawton. The man carried a clipboard. He’d been watching Brian reel through CCTV images, presumably from last night.
The man said, “You are?”
“Jake Lawton.”
“Mr. Lawton, our doorman. I’m Superintendent Phil Birch.”
“Okay.” Lawton shut the door, stepped into the room.
“I understand you came up here last night.”
“Here?” He glanced at Brian, who was fast-forwarding through tape.
Brian’s neck flushed. “Yes, I came up here to talk to Nathan Holt.”
“We’ve met Mr. Holt.”
“Good, then he explained why I came up here.”
“He did, but that’s not important.”
“Not important?”
“No, Mr. Lawton, what’s important is that the tape from last night’s CCTV recording is missing.”
Lawton couldn’t speak, his voice trapped in his throat. And no matter how much he tried, no sound would come out.
“Mr. Holt,” said Birch, “says you came up here to have a word, but he wasn’t here. Neither were Mr. Smith, here” – he indicated to Brian, who had turned beetroot red – “nor his colleague Miss Lisa Dennison.”
“That’s a lie. Brian, that’s a fucking lie.”
Brian turned. Fear filled his eyes. Colour had rinsed his cheeks. His mouth open and closed.
Lawton felt his chest tightening. His mind flashed back, and he had to grab the back of a chair to steady himself.
He said, “Someone’s fucking with me. I’m being set up – again.”
Birch said, “Mr Smith, you can leave, now,” and Brian scuttled out, head down, mumbling.
Lawton didn’t look at him; he let him slip out. Brian was all right.
Lawton couldn’t understand why he’d lie – unless he’d been got at.
“You were here alone, Mr. Lawton,” said Birch, “and the tape that could provide evidence as to who killed twenty-eight people here last night has gone missing. Any ideas?”
“I wasn’t here alone. Brian was here. Lisa was here. And Holt was here. I came up to complain that a drug dealer – a known drug dealer – had been let into the club.”
Birch tapped his teeth with the end of a pen. “Who was that, then?”
Lawton said who it was and Birch scribbled something down on his clipboard. He showed the clipboard to the other suit. The man nodded and went to a corner, where he got on the phone.
Birch said, “Why would three people give us a different story, tell us you were here alone – for long enough to snaffle that tape?”
“Why would I want to snaffle that tape?”
Birch shrugged. “You tell me.”
“I can’t, because I don’t know.”
The other suit moved back into the light. He handed Birch a scrap of paper torn from a notebook. Birch studied the piece of paper. Reading it, he said, “Fraser Lithgow was apprehended by doormen at Religion a couple of months ago, suspected of being in possession of ecstasy pills. Turned out it was all a bit of a cock up. Had nothing on him.”
“That’s crap,” said Lawton. “I found them. Two bags of blue pills stuffed into his shoes.”
Birch raised his eyebrows. “You found them.”
“Yes I did. I found them.”
Birch nodded and hummed.
“What’s that mean?” said Lawton. “That humming.”
“Nothing, Mr. Lawton. Interesting that you claimed to have found drugs on this gentleman, that’s all. And then you claim you came up here last night to complain about him being allowed entry into Religion. Pissing on your patch was he, sir?”
Lawton glared at him, and the man’s cheeks blanched.
Lawton said, “I’ve been here before, Superintendent Birch.”
“How do you mean?”
“Being fitted up for something I didn’t do.”
He smiled and Lawton saw that the man knew – probably had it written down on his clipboard.
Lawton said, “If I’m not under arrest, I’m walking away. Are you going to arrest me?”
Birch shook his head. “But if you do come across that tape, you’ll let me know?”
“I would bloody love to.”
* * *
Lawton stormed out of Religion. Milo, upgrading the club’s security system, didn’t see him – and that was lucky for Milo, because he’d get another smack the way Lawton felt now.
Lawton walked a little way down the street and leaned against a door. He blew air out of his cheeks and rolled a cigarette. He watched the passers-by and smelled Chinese wafting from a nearby restaurant.
It got his stomach going.
He lit the cigarette and smoked, and was starting to enjoy it until a voice said, “Is it drugs or murder this time, Mr. Lawton? Or perhaps a bit of both?”
He looked up and saw her standing there, a swagger in her posture.
The rage that had been dying rose again in Lawton’s breast. He stared down at his feet and smoked his cigarette, saying, “I’ve got nothing to say to you. I’ve never had anything to say to you.”
“No comment, then,” said Christine Murray. “That looks good in print. Implies guilt.”
“I don’t care what you think, I don’t care what you say. You fucking lied and lied
before about me, and you’ll lie and lie again, I guess.”
And he stepped away from the doorway, striding past her down to Old Compton Street. The rain drizzled and he pulled up the collar of his jacket.
She followed him and said, “Are you involved, Mr. Lawton? I hear the police have questioned you. Something about a tape.”
He turned sharply to face her, and she stopped in her tracks. They stood like two buoys in a sea of people and the crowd washed around them.
Lawton said, “Do you want a story, Mrs. Murray –?”
“Christine, please. We’re old friends.”
“All right, I’ve got a story for you: they’re setting me up. Just like I was set-up two years ago.”
“You’re paranoid, Jake.”
“Mr. Lawton, please,” he said. “We’re not friends.”
“What do you know about this tape?”
“I don’t know anything about the tape.”
“And the drugs?”
Lawton opened his mouth and then stopped himself.
“Mr. Lawton?” said Murray, canting her head to the side. “You were about to say – ”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said, and spun away from her, then strode off.
“Come on, Mr. Lawton. You’re a suspect, did you know that? They like you for this, that’s what I’m hearing.”
He walked and she followed, and her voice made his skin crawl.
He’d heard it for months after he came home from Basra.
She pestered him by phone, harassed him at his flat, harried him in the pub.
She wrote her stories and the papers published them, but Lawton never gave them a word. And then other papers came after him, and they pestered and harassed and harried, and wrote their stories. But he didn’t give them a word, either.
They went away, but Murray came back. And she kept coming back until she had nothing left to ask.
If she’d been a man, he would’ve killed her – he was certain of that.
And as he turned into Shaftesbury Avenue, he heard her voice filter through the noise of traffic and people.
She said, “They’ll get you in the end, Mr. Lawton. I might be the only friend you’ll have left – ”
* * *
Murray shivered and watched Lawton get swallowed by the crowds.
He chilled her, and always had. The dark hair, cropped short, and the narrow, steel-grey eyes set in a pale, sharp face, said military straight off. He was lean and powerful, and she imagined he’d be like granite if you hit him. Not spongy like most men. Scars peppered his face, but he was still handsome. And she guessed that he had a soft, warm smile when he chose to smile it. He was still young, but his career was over.
Not much of a future, except perhaps in the black market – drugs, protection rackets, hired killings.
She’d stalked him for months after the tape fell into her hands. It was a big story, but Lawton didn’t want to play. He was still serving in Iraq.
“They still allow him to carry a weapon,” she’d said to a news editor when she was trying to sell the story.
The Mail refused to run the tape, said it would damage the Army.
The Sun was a bit squeamish. The Mirror had its fingers burnt by publishing fake images of British troops pissing on Iraqi prisoners.
But a Sunday red-top paid buckets for the story, and Murray posted the video on her website. Already well known among her peers, she became a minor celeb.
And Lawton got kicked out of the Army.
“You have your sacrifice,” said Murray’s Ministry of Defence mole, a sneer in his voice.
She got a lot of shit from Army types, one officer saying, “This man’s been shot five times for his country, he’s a hero, and you bitch of a hack destroy his career with your lies.”
But commissions poured in from newspapers and magazines, and Murray became a troop-baiter.
Murray still loved the buzz of a newsroom and took on freelance shifts at all the nationals when she could. A couple of weeks ago she’d signed to do a month at the Mail’s Kensington HQ – and the timing couldn’t have been better.
Murray’s vision blurred as she glared at the crowd into which Lawton had vanished.
She thought of getting a coffee and ringing the newsdesk to update them. Her phone rang, and she thought they’d got there first. But when she looked at the screen, she saw it wasn’t the newsdesk and she sighed.
“Hello, Richard,” she said.
A few seconds of silence filled the line, but then he said, “You said you’d be here for them.”
“There are twenty-eight people dead, Richard.”
“I know, I heard the news.”
“Well, I’ve got to – ”
“Your sons asked after you.”
A knot of pain tugged in her belly. She flinched. “I – I know I promised but – ”
“No buts anymore, Chrissie. No buts. You can’t break promises you make to them, you just can’t. When are you home?”
“I-I can’t say.”
He sighed, and she gritted her teeth, rage rising in her breast.
“Well,” he said, “we’ll see you when we see you. Oh, they won’t, they’ll be in bed, your sons. So, I’ll see you when I see you.”
He cut her off and she yanked the mobile away from her ear. She bit her lip and tried not to cry.
Chapter 8
GIVING YOU EXTRA.
High Street Kensington, London – 11.45 a.m., February 7
LAWTON said, “I’d like to make a withdrawal.”
The cashier looked up and paled.
“Hello, Fraser,” said Lawton.
Lithgow grimaced, trying to make a smile.
“How about it, Lithgow? A withdrawal?”
“What – what kind of withdrawal, sir?”
“Your heart, right out of your chest with my bare hands. And don’t think I couldn’t.”
Lithgow tottered on his stool behind the counter, and the colour left his face. An Asian woman came up behind him, threw a glance at Lawton, and then spoke to Lithgow. “Everything all right, Fraser?” and then looking at Lawton said, “Sir, can we help at all?”
Lawton smiled at her and she smiled back. He said, “It’s fine. My account’s in a bit of a mess, and I get flustered. I may have made your colleague nervous with my outburst, but I apologize. It’s my fault. I should be more careful with my money.”
“All right, sir,” she said. “Fraser, can you deal with this?”
“Yes, yes, it’s all fine,” he said, and the woman slipped away, eyeing Lawton.
“What do you want?” said Lithgow.
“I want you, in ten minutes, to have a sudden need for a cigarette and meet me in Starbucks across the road.”
“I don’t – I can’t – ”
“Or I’ll put a name to the face the cops have on that CCTV tape handing out pills to kids just before they died on Wednesday night.”
Lawton glared at him and hid the lie behind the steel grey of his eyes.
“Oh, fuck,” said Lithgow. “Okay, okay, ten minutes.”
Lawton glanced at the poster stuck on Lithgow’s window. It showed the Halifax’s Howard offering to give us extra.
Glaring back at Lithgow, he said, “No TV ad for you if you fuck this one up, Fraser.”
Lawton strode out.
He crossed the road to Starbucks and sat in a window seat, cradling a black coffee.
He thought about Jenna and he thought about that copper trying to nail him for the missing CCTV footage. He thought about Murray, stalking him again. He blew air out of his cheeks and went into his pocket for his Rizzla and Old Holborn, but then remembered where he was.
His skin crawled, and he felt fear grind through his guts. Lawton knew he was being fitted up.
Was it Holt? And was he trying to protect Lithgow? Brian and Lisa had obviously been got at. And the copper, Birch, was being fed information.
Jenna came back into his mind, and he felt sadness well in
his breast.
He didn’t think he’d feel like this about her. She was never the one, but he cared for her.
And if he’d let life control him, and he’d ended up falling into a marriage and babies with her, he’d have been happy enough.
He almost told Birch that he’d lost an ex in the tragedy. But he hesitated. They’d want to know why she was an ex; they’d make things up about their relationship, twist his words and give him motive. He hoped the tired looking PC he’d mentioned it to last night outside Religion would forget.
He shook the clutter out of his head and watched the traffic sweep along Kensington High Street.
He stared at the bank, waiting for Lithgow to slither out. Lawton looked at his watch. Ten minutes, he’d said. It was already fifteen. If Lithgow’d done a runner, he’d find him and wrench his neck like a chicken.
The irritation grew in Lawton. He was about to storm out of Starbucks and go find Lithgow. But then the little sneak jogged out of the bank.
Five minutes later, Lithgow cowered opposite Lawton in Starbucks with a green tea. He took a packet of sweets from his navy suit jacket and popped one in his mouth. He pouted and his face creased up.
Lawton, curling his lip, said, “Where’d you get those pills you had last night, Fraser?”
“Hey,” he said, sucking the sweet, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t have any – ”
“Don’t bullshit me, you fucking insect.”
“I’m telling you,” Lithgow said, his gaze flitting about the coffee shop, “I was clean.”
“You’re about as clean as dog shit, Fraser.” Lawton leaned across the table, bracing himself for the lie: “You’re on tape, I told you. The cops, this morning, say, ‘Who’s that little shit selling pills to that girl?’ Now”
– he leaned back, folded his arms – “I said nothing. I thought, ‘Give Fraser the benefit of the doubt, find him myself and ask him nicely.’ So here I am” – he leaned forward again, frowning – “asking you nicely.”
Lithgow glanced around. He swigged the tea.
Lawton said, “You know that Jenna died?”
Lithgow stared at him, his expression frozen in a look of terror.
