Carnivore

by Jonathan Lyon

  ‘Me,’ Francis said.

  ‘And who do you have there with you, Mr Cole?’

  ‘My boyfriend.’

  ‘And would he like to tell me his name?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ I said slowly, my tongue nearly tranquilised to aphasia.

  ‘They already know your name,’ Francis said.

  ‘That’s correct Mr Cole, yes we do. And am I right in understanding that it was Mr Leander, and not you, Mr Cole, who was living with Mrs Cole at the time of her death?’

  ‘Yes,’ Francis said.

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘I’ve not lived with her since I was a child,’ he said. ‘I only seen her a couple times a year. She liked being high more than being with me. Her and Leander met in the same shelter, a year or two ago. And that’s how I met him, through her. And he liked me more than being high.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ the chief inspector said, ignoring me. ‘I will need more details from both of you in a minute, but first, Mr Cole, please approach this table for me and identify the woman lying on it there.’

  He stepped aside to reveal a wasted woman with silver skin. We approached the table.

  ‘That’s not her,’ Francis said.

  ‘I understand that this might be difficult for you, but I need you to… look properly.’

  ‘That isn’t Dawn,’ I agreed.

  Even to my lazy vision, this drowned housewife was nobody I had met before. A technician was summoned and the tag on her toe was reviewed.

  ‘It’s been a busy night,’ the technician said, and beckoned us through a herd of students towards another table. ‘Is this the one you’re after?’

  ‘It’s past six o’clock in the evening,’ the chief inspector said. ‘Are you trying to tell me that it’s still last night?’

  ‘It’s felt like that down here,’ the technician said, pulling back the shroud of the body on this new table. ‘There was a flood… The shifts are blurring.’

  ‘That’s her,’ Francis said.

  Dawn’s lips were puckered as though a taste had made her smile, and looked more like Francis’ lips than they had before. Her nose was the same as Francis’ nose now, too, or always had been, but I’d never noticed – dainty between sharp cheekbones. And her cheeks had lost their laughter, and her skin was relaxed in an unfamiliar way.

  I thought of her demanding gifts for goddesses over the phone – and I smiled – and imagined giving her a waterfall as a present – and from the middle of the waterfall, a cockerel flew out – plucked featherless but still alive, panicking about the coming dawn – and we chased the cockerel down a lane of urinals, until Dawn fell over and the dawn arrived over us – and I fell onto her and pulled off her nightie as she begged me for an ambulance – whispering ‘Life is about to happen to us, life is about to happen to us.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The chief inspector nodded and the technician covered her back up. ‘Now would you please both follow me?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said, leaning my head into Francis’ neck. ‘Can we just go?’

  ‘No, Leander,’ Francis said. ‘They can help us.’

  He tugged me after the officers – out of the morgue, upstairs, and through a door behind a desk, into a room with lights that looked like egg yolks. A pin-board announced this as ‘The Bereavement Office’.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ the chief inspector asked.

  ‘He’s had a stab wound above his hip,’ the constable said. ‘And all along his back, it’s terrible, he’s got these lash marks. It looks like a very one-sided fight.’

  A tired man at the desk presented Francis with papers to sign.

  ‘A death certificate won’t be available until after the coroner’s report,’ he said.

  I fell back into a felt sofa and didn’t hear the rest of his words – until Francis replied, ‘Just burn her. I don’t care. I don’t want the ashes.’

  ‘Leander, I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.’ The chief inspector had sat down next to me.

  ‘Sorry, I’m really busy at the moment,’ I mumbled.

  ‘We’re here to protect you, duckling,’ the constable said, moving to my other side.

  Francis came to stand in front of me.

  ‘How did you get your injuries?’ the chief inspector asked.

  ‘Playing fantasy football.’

  ‘Is that so? And who were the players in your team?’

  ‘Fine, I don’t know anything about fantasy football,’ I said. ‘I can’t continue that metaphor.’

  ‘Can you try not using metaphors in your answers then? Can you describe the person or persons who attacked you? And can you please tell me how you managed to escape?’

  ‘My memory isn’t what it used to be…’ I said. ‘But I have this image of a man in an ostrich costume, waving a meat cleaver, and as he was holding me down he was saying there’s been a thousand deaths in police custody in twenty years, but no convictions for murder. I was very shocked.’

  ‘Alright, let’s talk about murder instead then. Where were you last night?’

  ‘That’s too long ago… Maybe… let me think. Maybe Bermuda? Or Tenerife? Some volcanic island…’

  ‘He was with me,’ Francis said.

  ‘And where were you?’ The chief inspector asked.

  ‘What’s that got to do with us?’ Francis asked. ‘You saying my mum’s been murdered?’

  I felt like I was pedalling a bicycle underwater. I closed my eyes and saw an ocean above me patterned like a harlequin – chequered by sunlight and ruffed with surf – and devils were cartwheeling across the surface – and I was below them, less comic, less nimble, but no less astute – and I pedalled along after them until a wave dragged me back.

  ‘Your mother’s death on its own would not look suspicious,’ the chief inspector said. ‘She had a history of addiction, she overdosed – that’s straightforward. But your mother, we now think, is… part of a wider circle, that we’re trying to shade in. And that’s less simple.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like metaphors,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the wider circle?’ Francis asked. ‘And what’s it got to do with us?’

  ‘Out of respect, I’m going to give you some information,’ the chief inspector said. ‘And what I expect in return is for you to give me some information back. Does that sound fair?’

  ‘Ok,’ Francis said.

  ‘We have been investigating a criminal organisation, or a network, which operates not just on the streets but also on the part of the internet called the dark web. A major figure within this organisation – possibly the major figure – goes by the name “The Rockstar”. Have either of you heard this name before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alright. We believe there is a single man behind that name, a well-hidden man, connected to dozens of human trafficking cases across Europe, at least. But we’ve had very few leads on who he is, or on what his operation looks like in the real world. We know his supply line starts in Afghanistan and moves through Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Poland, before coming to the UK. We know men and women are locked in lodging houses, their passports are taken away, and they are forced to work – often in the sex trade and the farming industry – and their earnings are seized. We know that some of the victims are refugees – two of whom managed to escape and confirmed some of these details to us. But due to their… injuries, they weren’t able to remember much. And so, Leander, I want to ask you again, how did you manage to escape?’

  ‘Just by like being myself and trying to have fun with it, you know?’ I attempted a Californian accent.

  ‘We’ve had very few leads on this case,’ he continued like I hadn’t replied. ‘Until last night, when we received a 999 call from someone saying that they were trapped inside a bathroom in the Rockway bar in Brixton, with a woman who appeared to have overdosed.’

  ‘Do people still make phone calls?’ I asked incredulously.
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  ‘First responders to the scene reported finding a boy in a red dress with a bruised eye in the bathroom, together with the woman described in the 999 call, surrounded by older men who appeared to be intimidating the boy.’

  ‘Do they still have orgies in public toilets?’ I asked, trying to be more annoying. ‘I thought that had all been gentrified away.’

  ‘Paramedics,’ he continued to ignore me, ‘concluded that this boy had made the 999 call, but after getting him out of the building, they lost sight of him.’

  ‘That seems… unprofessional,’ I said.

  ‘He was last seen by a police officer getting into a white car with a taller man wearing white. The paramedics and the officers also reported the presence of a middle-aged man dressed in formal evening clothes, who appeared hysterical. This man identified the overdosed woman as Dawn Cole, and claimed that she was his wife, but refused to provide further information about his own identity, so could not be allowed into the ambulance with her. Police officers described a crowd of men in dark clothes coming out of the bar – and described them as deferential towards the hysterical man in formal clothes. None of the men agreed to be interviewed, and some of those inside the bar fled from the back entrance. We believe that we interrupted the gathering of a gang. And we believe this gang to be connected to “The Rockstar”.’

  ‘You’re saying my mum’s part of a gang?’ Francis asked. ‘No way. She was too high to do anything.’

  ‘Exactly. Your mother, like a few of the other people at the bar, was known to us. But she had no previously known affiliation to the others and she had an entirely different criminal profile. She had a history of non-violent crime – shoplifting and drug possession. She was registered to a hostel, which we visited this morning. We were told that she had moved out a day earlier, with a young man she called her son, named Leander. This led Constable Floris here to visit the home of her real son this afternoon. Does this part of the story sound familiar? I have given you information, and I would like some information in return.’

  ‘I think Joyce’s work is more of an athletic triumph than an aesthetic triumph,’ I said pretentiously, in my worst Irish accent. ‘Apart from the end of Finnegans Wake, of course, when she’s saying “I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father —”’

  ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘Didn’t you want some information?’ I said. ‘That’s my favourite —’

  ‘I don’t want to hear that,’ the chief inspector said, finally raising his voice in irritation. ‘So let me give you one last piece of information. The maximum sentence for gross negligent manslaughter is life imprisonment.’

  ‘That seems… unreasonable.’

  ‘And were we to discover that last night you had allowed or helped or even forced Dawn Cole to overdose on heroin then you could be liable for that sentence. This is not my theory; this is the theory of the man dressed in formal clothes who was described as hysterical by the paramedics. What I want to know is – was he the man that you referred to as “Kimber” on the 999 call you made last night, before escaping the scene with Mr Cole here in a stolen car?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Leander, just fucking tell him,’ Francis said.

  ‘I just did!’ I said.

  I tasted bitumen – the coating tar of warships – and imagined a fleet of them trailing petrol through the arteries of my feet. I kicked myself.

  ‘What address were you and Mrs Cole moving to? We have been following Kimber for a long time as a possible affiliate of the man known as “The Rockstar”. And we believe Dawn may represent a weak spot in his operations. We wish to search her possessions to see if any further information about him can be recovered. If you are helpful, we can interpret your actions last night as the behaviour of someone in shock. If not…’

  ‘If not… then you will have to leave me alone anyway because you have no evidence?’

  ‘You are in danger, my duckling,’ Constable Floris said. ‘This is our lead; you need to help us.’

  ‘Just give them the fucking address,’ Francis said.

  ‘Is that all you want?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have the key.’

  ‘Without a warrant, a police officer would need to be accompanied to the property by the tenant. So you and Constable Floris – and Mr Cole if he chooses to – should go to that property as soon as you can. Any evidence at all could save lives.’

  ‘And then you’ll leave us alone?’ Francis asked.

  ‘Unless there’s any other information you want to bring forward, then this is all we need from you. You have given us a lead. We just need you to help us follow it through.’

  I met Francis’ gaze and shrugged. He helped me stand. Constable Floris led us in silence out of the hospital, into the hall, back to her car. Detective Chief Inspector Sanam waved at us as we drove away, without a smile, sheltered by the roof marked ‘MORTUARY’.

  3.

  ‘How you feeling?’ Francis asked.

  I was wrapped around his arm, with his chest as my pillow. His sweatshirt smelt of bread flour. The rain rapped the car like a drum roll, promising a punch line it didn’t know.

  ‘I feel like a taxidermy version of myself,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘A bad taxidermy – with beads for eyes and limbs askew. My stitches are failing. Or a taxidermy arctic fox, left above a mantelpiece for years, till one summer afternoon the scent of wisteria is so strong that it’s almost vulgar – and the nose of the fox sniffs, lifting a nailed paw, and then another, and another, until it leaps off the mantelpiece, half-alive – and it can fly, and it flies through the air above the dining table, above the diners, out of the window, borne by wisteria, towards the clouds, towards the north, towards home. It becomes more alive the closer to the winter it flies – its seams resealing, its sawdust sliding into blood, its black eyes gaining white vignettes until it can see as well as smell. But when it comes to the right place, the place it believes it was born, there is no ice, there is no mother, and there is no home – and maybe there never was – and the fox, for the first time, misses its taxidermied state, its glue and its thread. But it cannot die anymore, of course – so instead it flies upwards, to where the clouds disperse and the atmosphere thins – until the fox is in space, sailing, accelerating, to join the asteroids and comets, arcing for nothing now, and so home at last in an eternal transit.’

  ‘I want to be an arctic lion,’ Francis said. ‘Do they have those? A snow lion, that eats arctic foxes…’

  ‘You want to eat me?’

  ‘Lions can’t help their instincts, can they?’

  ‘Can’t lions and foxes be friends? It’s lonely in the ice.’

  ‘What am I going to eat then?’

  I paused. We were crossing Battersea Bridge, and I watched the hail hit the Thames as it swelled. The waves slapped into each other with no direction – churning flotsam and jetsam and gulls alike – an implacable surface, its eddies shaped like the thumbprints of eroded giants. The waves were beckoning to me to come under – to where corpses from all the countries of the world lay muffled by mud, their homelands burnt and robbed and brought back here – to the Thames, London’s guilty conscience, the spine of an empire – unknowable and slow and indomitable, even after death.

  ‘You learn not to eat,’ I said. ‘You learn how to survive on wind.’

  ‘I want to eat.’

  ‘Ok, you can eat me then. But you’ll be lonely after.’

  ‘Who’s saying you’re all I’ve got?’ Francis teased. ‘Maybe snow lions hunt in packs.’

  ‘After you eat me, you will alter, and lose appetite for the company of other lions. You’ll pad to an ice cave, and sleep, and as you sleep, you’ll breathe out a mist that freezes into the shape of a fox – and I’ll reform, beside you, your dream becoming flesh, and then you’ll be happy again – until you eat me that evening. And so it’ll be every day, from then on – you’ll have no pack, no pride, but you’ll dream me back to life each night,
and eat me before you go to sleep each evening. The days will be ours to eat together.’

  ‘Where’s your necklace?’ he asked, diverting this reverie, his fingers stroking the back of my neck.

  ‘They took everything off me,’ I said.

  ‘The men who beat you up?’

  ‘They stripped me and threw me naked into the canal. And stole my money.’

  He tightened his hold into a hug and kissed my hair. ‘Why did you go back then? Why’d you come to my exhibition then go back to them?’

  ‘I had to go back for Dawn. Even though I was too late.’

  ‘Why didn’t you let me come with you?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘So that’s why you was all distant to me all night? Was that why? You should of let me come with you.’

  ‘I was on ketamine… I was confused.’

  I looked out of the window again. We were driving past one of London’s many new upmarket apartment blocks, and it looked like a stack of tarot cards made of glass – all the same card, the hermit, since no one that lived there knew anyone else. They lived in online communities, really, as the physical home became less and less possible – atomised and stressed and envious – severed from the past and forced towards a future that was worse. The upper third of the building was cluttered with penthouses, to maximise profit. Below them, balconies were slotted like palisades, and so seemed almost feudal – like a monastery of white-collar monks, observing a new asceticism. Sanitised, depersonalised, touch-sensitive, cool, and motion-controlled, a futurism that was really just conservatism – or maybe even just decadence – unaffordable as it was to the young and poor – a symptom of an era about to end, and which would end with inner London cleansed of all but its aspiration and its debt.

  ‘Why was you with Eva?’

  ‘Huh?’ I asked, closing my eyes. ‘Oh. Her address just came into my head when I was passing out. I told it to the man that found me.’

  ‘She… did you know she was going to play that video of me?’

  ‘No,’ I said, wincing at the memory of his humiliated body projected onto the gallery wall. ‘But I liked your yellow ribbons. I’ve never seen you sit in a chair like that before. The audience probably thought you were brave.’