by Adam Baron
I stood in my kitchen looking into the fridge. The chicken was still there but I had no urge to do anything about it. I didn’t really know why I’d bought it actually, Shulpa always seemed to want to try the latest new restaurant. All I wanted to do was have a cup of tea and then go to sleep. I shut the door and flipped the kettle on and then just stood, looking out of the window towards the market, watching people walking quickly down towards Farringdon Tube or hurrying into the Penny Black. Then I just seemed to come to, to wake up almost, to realize where I was, as if the time before that moment had been some sort of illusion. I shook my head and blinked. The last two days had come upon me like a freak wave and completely taken me out. Now I found myself standing on dry ground, looking around at my kitchen as if I were a potential house buyer. It was because, right at that moment, there was nothing I could possibly do, there was no one to go and see. I’d tried to find Draper and until Alison’s murder was public knowledge that was all I could do. I didn’t have a clue where else to look. I felt exonerated somehow, excused, and it felt good – even though I was tired I was filled with a bizarre elation. I used to get this feeling on the force sometimes after working really hard. It was usually when we’d gone so far and were waiting for forensics to move, and couldn’t do a thing until they had. A feeling of getting your head above water. There was also the fact that after the initial cold horror of seeing the corpse of a murder victim, and of trying to work out who had left it there, there often came the thrill, the almost vicious thrill of simply being able to walk away from it, of taking another breath. Of being able to leave it lying there. Of it not being you.
I made some tea and suddenly I was hungry. I left a message on Shulpa’s machine, asking her if she was busy that night, if she wanted to do something, get a bite to eat. She liked hanging out in Soho so I took a chance and booked a table at Spiga on Wardour Street, hoping I hadn’t forgotten about some other arrangement she’d made. I sat for a second, as the girl checked to see what was free, thinking about Shulpa sitting opposite me sucking the flesh from olive pips. The dream I’d had of her came back and it made me feel a little ashamed of myself as well as arousing me at the same time. Again I thought of times on the force, nights following the start of a murder inquiry. How the tension between male and female officers was suddenly shot with a thousand volts. I needed Shulpa. I needed to feel her teeth biting into my lips, feel myself inside her, as far as I could go. I needed to say, ‘You’re dead, Alison, I’m not, look at me, I’m not like you.’ I was back at my mother’s funeral. Halfway through the wake one of the girls she’d worked with let me take her upstairs and screw her over the sink in the bathroom, her half-stifled screams rising above the respectful murmur coming up through the floor below.
The phone rang towards the end of a game in the UEFA cup, Liverpool walking all over a team from Finland who looked like they’d have trouble on Hackney marshes let alone Anfield. Looking at Owen made me think of Draper. That would have been him. I saw the goal he’d scored again, and thought of another couple I remembered him getting. Draper had a strange look about him when he knocked one in. He didn’t go mad, pull his shirt over his head or point to the name on the back of it. He just looked slightly fucked off, justified, like a man let out on appeal. He didn’t let the other players near him, taking his own time to get back to the circle, like a circus lion out of his cage. It was almost as if he expected to score, and he would score, just as long as everyone else did their jobs, something he clearly felt they seldom did.
I reached over, grabbed the phone and said my name, as the shot moved to John Barnes in the studio wearing a suit that a blind man wouldn’t have chosen. I repeated my name but there was no answer. I said it again but still no response.
‘Shulpa?’
It was a mobile, I could tell that; background noise bathed in static. I thought for a second that there was no one there, the phone had got knocked on by accident, in Shulpa’s bag or something.
‘Shulpa? Hello?’
I shrugged, about to hang up, disappointed not to be listening to a deep soft voice telling me how much she wanted to see me. I smiled, just thinking about her doing that. I flicked channels, getting a Rising Damp repeat on 4. The phone rested in my hand. Alan was telling Rigsby to calm down. There was a killer on the loose. Calm down?! Calm down?! What do you meeaaan?! But then I heard a voice. It mumbled a word, a word that sounded like my name. It was faint, hardly there, but I could tell it was a man’s voice and all of a sudden I sat up.
My hand gripped the receiver. ‘Jack, is that you?’
‘Billy,’ the voice said. It was louder now, but still a whisper. No, not a whisper. You whisper when you’re trying to be quiet. This person was speaking as loud as he could.
‘Hello…’
‘Billy.’ It was a huge struggle. There was an unnatural wetness to the voice, disguising it. I didn’t think it was on purpose. Something was wrong.
‘Billy…’
Then I knew who it was. And I had a feeling, an ice-cold clenched feeling that had been waiting patiently in the pit of my stomach for two whole weeks. In a second it had flared right through me.
‘Nicky…’
‘Thank God…’
He coughed, and spat.
‘Can you help me, Billy?’
‘Of course. Nicky. Nicky! Speak to me.’ Nothing. ‘Nicky, keep talking.’
I thought I heard his voice again but I couldn’t be sure. I shouted a few more times. I didn’t get a response. I heard what sounded like scraping, and then nothing.
The line went dead.
Chapter Nine
Running out onto the street I smacked straight into an old man walking past my flat. He looked frail and resentful as he kept his balance and I felt instantly terrible. But I didn’t have time for it. When I got to my car I saw that I’d been blocked in, by a van on one end and an empty black cab on the other. I didn’t have time for that either. The cab took most of it. I got out eventually, and put my foot down.
I knew he was in a bad way. There was blood in his throat. I knew it as soon as I put the phone down. I dialled him back immediately but there was no reply. I didn’t have a clue how to find him.
Before rushing out, the first thing I’d done was call Nicky’s bar, the Old Ludensian. Toby, his head barman, came on the line.
‘No. Haven’t seen him.’ Toby was casual. ‘He went out at lunch and never came back.’
‘Did he tell you where he was going?’
‘No. Just said he’d be back. And he isn’t.’
‘Have you looked upstairs?’
‘No, should I? Is there something wrong?’
‘If you could have a look, please, Toby.’
Toby checked the flat out and came back on the line to say it was empty.
I called Nicky’s home number, knowing he wouldn’t be picking up. He’d sounded like he was outside. I thought he may have left some sort of message on his machine but he hadn’t. Finally, I called Shulpa. She’d just got in from work, hadn’t even played her messages yet. I asked her if she’d seen her brother and she told me no. I asked her if she knew what he was doing today but she didn’t, she hadn’t seen him for a week. I tried to be calm but she picked up on the stress in my voice.
‘What’s happened? Billy, what’s happened to Nick?’
‘I don’t know. He called on his mobile, didn’t sound very good. I tried to get him to tell me where he was but he rang off. Shulpa, do you have a key to his flat?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But he keeps one at the bar. It’s with the cellar keys. He’s loaned me it a few times.’
‘Right. I’ll go and get it. It’s as good a place to start as any.’
‘Shall I come? I want to. I’ll meet you there…’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He knows your number. If he tries me again and I’m out he may try you.’
Shulpa agreed to stay at home. I dialled Nicky’s mobile again but it just kept ringing.
I knew it. I fu
cking well knew it. I got to Nicky’s bar in five minutes. I persuaded Toby to let me take all the keys I could find. How was I to know which was which? Toby was nervous about it but he didn’t argue. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had. I left the car outside and ran up to Nicky’s flat. Nicky lives in a former council block near Ironmonger Row baths, ten minutes’ walk from the bottom end of St John Street, where his bar is. About a year ago he’d noticed two properties for sale, next door to one another, and bought them both. The conversion he’d had done cost more than both flats together. I got into Nicky’s flat quickly, after trying only two keys that didn’t work.
Nicky wasn’t there. I called his mobile again and got nothing. I looked around. A feeling of raging annoyance at myself kept trying to beat itself into me but I held it back, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. I turned the place upside down. There were no notes by the phone, no memos on the fridge, nothing to tell me where he was. I couldn’t find anything in his desk diary. The day had an asterisk on it but other than that it was a blank. The message light on his machine was flashing but the only message was from me. I changed the message, telling Nicky to tell me where he was if he called there. His remote access code was printed on a label inside the machine and I put the label in my wallet.
I didn’t know which way to turn next. I dialled my machine, and my office machine, in case he’d called me again. He hadn’t, there was nothing from anyone on either. I paced round his flat, hunting around, lifting magazines, looking in cupboards for the sake of it, picking up things I’d picked up before. I couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t I forced him to tell me what was going on…?
I made myself stand for a minute, leaning against a thin metal support in Nicky’s cavernous living room. Maybe if I could work out what was going on it would help me find him. Was it something to do with Draper? I waited for some inspiration but nothing came. I felt helpless, frustrated. I took Nicky’s keys and walked out onto his balcony, locking his door behind me.
The only thing I could think to do was see if his car was there. Nicky rents a lock-up garage at the rear of the building. I ran down the stairs and out of the rear door, leaving it wedged open so I could get in again quickly if I needed to. Outside it was dark, the sky clear and purple black with stars like fine stab wounds. I jogged through a well-lit communal space complete with small squares of grass, concrete walkways doused in salt and a child’s swing set. Ignoring the cold I made my way round the other side of the building and came out by some high-sided aluminium wheelie bins. The garages were in a square beyond them, with an entrance where the last garage in the square would have been.
I carried on jogging into the square. There were only a few limp bulbs fixed on the garage roofs and there wasn’t a lot of light. All I could see was junk, stacked against garages that were obviously out of use; old furniture, a knackered fridge, things the bin men wouldn’t take. There were cars parked outside about a third of the garage doors, their owners either driving two vehicles or using the space for other storage. I’d been to Nicky’s garage a few times and knew it was on the far side. I made my way round, hoping I’d remember which one it was, running my eyes along the row of garages, all practically identical to each other. I thought I had it. Number thirty-four. I stopped outside it, my mind going back to the times Nicky had driven me back there, what I’d seen when I came out of it, which direction his flat was in.
I looked back at the apartment block, five storeys of pale yellow window lights like rows of bad teeth. Yes, I was positive. I stood in the middle of the door, not really knowing what to do. It was closed, the thin black sheet of steel pulled over and down. I looked back round the square, my hands on my hips. Then I leaned on the door and nearly fell when it moved. It was open, the bottom pushed out towards me.
I didn’t know whether Nicky locked his garage as a matter of course, but today he hadn’t. If he was using the car, and he kept nothing else in there, this wouldn’t have been hard to believe. Personally, I would have still locked it – you never know what someone is going to do in a space like that if they find it empty – but Nicky may not have wanted to unlock it before putting his car away. No, that didn’t make sense, he would have had to get out of his car to open the door anyway. I stepped backwards and pushed the door over.
I was surprised to see Nicky’s car standing there. Why have a garage and not lock it? I fumbled for a switch and pushed it down, sending a square of light reaching out into the dark. I looked the car over, the light adding a soft sheen to the dark paintwork. I still couldn’t figure it. Nicky must just have forgotten to lock up, but I couldn’t imagine that. How could he have, when he had had to pull the door closed anyway? The lock was in the handle he must have used. I was trying to work out what had happened when I heard a sound behind me.
I was startled, but it was only a mobile ringing. I ignored it and looked around. The car seemed okay. A flashing red light from the dash told me Nicky had locked and alarmed it. Looking in through the windows I could see nothing awry. I slid along the narrow gap on the left side to the front and looked for signs of an accident. Nothing. I bent to look underneath – nothing there either. I stood up, shaking my head, and looked out at the tongue of damp orange sticking out from the garage into the darkness.
And as I did so, a drop fell from the bottom of the pull-over door, landing with a quiet ‘tick’, just outside the garage. I stared down at it. It hadn’t been raining. I was walking towards it when it was followed by another, which this time hung almost to a thread before it broke, and fell. I didn’t understand. Then I did. No, it hadn’t been raining. I looked at my hands. The thumb, palm and forefinger of my right hand were sticky with blood. I looked up to the door again where another droplet fell from the lip of the garage door, the door I’d pushed over to get in.
Now I could see small dark spots on the ground outside, illuminated by the light from the garage like a Weegee shot. I ran outside and called his name. I looked behind cars, amongst the junk, in the farthest, unlit corners. There were shadows everywhere, the whole far side was obscured by darkness. I couldn’t see him. I looked some more. Then I cursed myself and ran upstairs to his flat. When I’d got in there I dialled his mobile number and ran back down again. I could hear it as soon as I opened the back door.
‘Nicky. Nicky!’
He didn’t answer, but his phone was still calling to me from the darkness like an abandoned chick. I made myself shut up but I needn’t have bothered because there was silence as it went to voicemail. I zigzagged to where the sound had been coming from and after a couple of minutes I found him. He was slumped on the far side, half underneath an old rusting Transit with four piles of bricks instead of wheels. He was face down, his mobile beneath his left cheekbone.
I put the phone in my back pocket as I bent down to my friend.
He wasn’t moving.
Chapter Ten
Two weeks earlier I’d had no idea that everything wasn’t its usual easy-going self in the life of my friend. I’d been in my flat with Shulpa. It was a Sunday, and I’d taken her to a Turkish place off the Caledonian Road, somewhere I hadn’t eaten in years. I like going out for dinner on a Sunday night, but it has to be a Sunday night kind of a place, and the restaurant we went to didn’t really have it. The manager was rude and the food was only okay, which probably explained why I hadn’t been there in ages. You may wonder why I hadn’t taken Shulpa to a place that I knew, somewhere definitely worth going, but here I had a problem. Shulpa was my new girlfriend. I’ve lived in the area for years and every other decent place I could think of had old girlfriend written all over it. They would have had the burnt echoes of other Sunday nights ringing round my head. This was the last thing I wanted and I was candid enough to mention my reservations to Shulpa, who didn’t look impressed but said she understood, so we ended up eating indifferent moussaka on Copenhagen Street instead of great squid in Casale Franco, or free-range duck in the Falcon. It was a shame. Splitting up with someone, it doesn’t just
affect your heart. It’s a pain in the arse for your stomach too.
We’d cut our losses and gone back to my flat quite early, and it was probably due to the dissatisfaction we both felt that we didn’t stay there very long. Shulpa and I settled on my futon in front of the TV, not intending to go anywhere else, but as the only film worth watching was a repeat of Apocalypse Now, and we’d both seen it, we soon got bored.
‘Let’s go out again.’
Shulpa was already standing up, sliding her long slim feet into the Patrick Cox mules she’d kicked off only ten minutes before. I’d acquired a certain amount of inertia by now, old film or not, but I didn’t really have a choice. Something about the girl meant you had to keep up with her. You wanted to keep up with her. There was also the fact that the one thing we didn’t seem to be good at doing together was simply hanging out. I never felt completely at ease when we were doing normal, everyday things. There was an intense chemistry between us but somehow it didn’t extend to having a quiet couple of drinks together down at the Falcon or O’Hanlon’s, where an awkwardness would sit between us like a disapproving chaperone. For her part Shulpa always seemed to want to be doing something more than that anyway. Whenever we were just having coffee, say, or reading the paper, she would get a restless look in her eyes that seemed oddly close to fear. She had this almost insatiable need to fill her life with colour and noise. This need was inspiring most of the time but there was something about it that unsettled me.
‘Where to?’ I said. ‘It’s Sunday night…’
‘Some place in town. You must know somewhere that’s open.’ Shulpa had dug in her bag and come out with a lipstick, a dark sensual red. I watched her paint it on her full mouth, a little square, a little big for her face. It was only matched by her eyes, the biggest, darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. ‘Give me a few more weeks and I’ll have us on every guest list in the South of England. But I’ve only been here three months. And I’ve been wasting a lot of that time being a very naughty girl with you.’
