by Claire Askew
I had to obsess over something, though. I had to find something else to fill the space. I guess the space was depression. But I never really thought about it that hard. What doctor would I go to? What therapist? I just found ways to survive instead.
I did three things: I worked out, I counted my money and I cultivated my hatred for Solomon. On a good night I’d walk out of the sauna with an envelope of cash in perfectly good, kosher notes. I’d train two hours minimum a day: weights, boxing. The punch-bag was Solomon, and I’d batter in the eye sockets of that sly, grinning face over and over in my mind. I’d go in even if I got sick, only taking a day off if I thought I was working up an injury. On days I didn’t work out, I itched all over for movement, and the dreams were worse.
I knew it had become a fixation, the hatred, but I didn’t care. I blamed Solomon for everything: pulling me out of my old life, turning me into a criminal so I couldn’t go back without facing the jail. Without grassing. He’d made every option that wasn’t him impossible. I worked for Solomon. I was one of Solomon’s boys. I did bad things. That’s it, the end. No choice.
And I hated what he’d done to Vyshnya. Yeah, I’d kicked the shit out of some guys, I’d followed people, I’d scared people on purpose because I could. I’d walked through the world swinging my dick and taking names and I’d enjoyed it. But I wouldn’t do anything like that. I believed I couldn’t, like that level of cruelty just wasn’t in my bones. To hurt someone that badly, and to go on hurting them – to break them in every conceivable way – made Solomon inhuman, I decided. Literally not a person. And so I hated him with a fury that had no compassion. I knew it was based on my own fear. I was like a skinny dog in a corner, not chained but sticking around for its master’s beatings. I hated what he’d done to Karen, too, which was make her disappear. I hated myself for making her my own personal cautionary tale, but she was.
The girls at work were different, too. After Hanna, the rest of the old crew fell away, moved on, disappeared one by one. When they were replaced, it was by girls who had baggage. They were addicts, and that changed the nature of the work. Solomon had got into the flakka business by then, and these new girls couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t stand the stuff, and I hated the way it made them, loopy and spaced out when they had it, jittery and violent when they didn’t. I didn’t want it on the premises and they’d try to sneak it in. They’d ask their regulars to bring them some. For the first time ever, I had to get heavy with them, impose the rules. No drugs was a Vyshnya rule, but it was a smart one: any drugs found during a raid and it was game over for everyone. These new girls didn’t give a shit. They didn’t listen to me. I was just Schenok, the beaten puppy.
At work, I sat behind the hatch and daydreamed about leaving. This was what I was counting the money for, I told myself: if I got out fast, I could use my Nick Smith passport one final time, get on a plane and disappear. I daydreamed about making it to Russia at last, finally making that teenage daydream come true. But I knew that Solomon had contacts everywhere in Russia. Even in Moscow, I’d stand out like a sore thumb: my self-taught Russian with Scots inflection, my unfamiliar tattoos. It was a big place, but even if I went to live in a shack in the Urals, I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. I’d be forever waiting for the gunshot, the door kicked in, the poison seeping into my veins as I realised it was too late. And what would I do for work? The Solomon cash I’d acquired would only last so long. The criminal life came with its perks: swish flat all to myself, free gym, nice watch, whatever I wanted. I’d got used to that. I only drove Vic’s van because a Maserati tends to draw attention when you’re following some dude home. Did I want to go back to being a penniless translator? Of course I didn’t. But the work was killing me: the work, the regrets, the dreams and the hatred. The thoughts were a circle, and the circle was endless.
Christmastime was the worst. I couldn’t shut it out. From the windows of my flat I could see lit trees in every other window but mine. Vyshnya had always let the girls string tinsel in the sauna lounge: I stopped that. The punters, sitting waiting for their particular girls, would chat with me about it, like doing much for Christmas, mate?, and they’d tell me about their families. What they’d bought for their kids. Even Fenton had family he’d go to at Christmas, and Toad would disappear home to Russia and go to his old Orthodox church. The first few years I’d liked it, doing my own thing: I’d take myself out to some fancy hotel and get fed five courses then stagger home. When Hanna was around we’d even had a tree up. But these past few years, it was bed and a bottle of brandy on Christmas Eve and then trying to sleep it all away. I used to hope it would all just pass without me noticing. It never did.
Being an official Missing Person didn’t help. I tried not to count the months, the years, but you do, you know? I couldn’t help it. The ten-year anniversary was hard. Maw relaunched her appeal and my face was on lampposts again. Social media was more of a thing. I shaved my head that year, grew a beard, started dressing more like Fenton, copying the way he hid in his clothes. And of course all the press shit got dragged up about how Maw had supposedly got money she shouldn’t have at the time I disappeared. Donations and that. And look, I’d never been found, they said. Look, I was probably dead. Where was that money? She ought to give it back. I wanted to go after every last one of them, especially that Lockley scumbag. I wanted to go home and see my maw and Nella and tell them I was okay and I was sorry and I dealt with Da and I’ve been fine this whole time and I’d missed them so much. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk blowing my own cover. And by now I’d done so many bad things that I wasn’t sure if I could look my maw in the face. Nella might understand, but I felt like Maw would be so disappointed in me that it literally might have killed her. It was nearly killing me, sitting day after day with who I’d become. Worrying that not only had Charlie Birch fucked up, but Nick Smith had, too. It was bad enough the appeal waking up again, but I was also just waiting for the visit from Solomon, come to tell me I was too much of a risk. Come to make me disappear, like Karen and Vyshnya and Tsezar before me.
I was lonely for years, working a job that used to be bearable but turned to shit before my eyes. I saw one workmate get beaten to a bloody pulp, another one disappear without trace – I lived every day knowing that was my fate too if I put a toe out of line. I’d fallen out of my life, never to see my loved ones again. I’d watched them search for me, and I’d failed to reach out because I was too damn scared, too damn ashamed. I learned my maw had died from a column in the paper. I never even knew she had cancer. Why’d you decide to get out, Charlie? As if all of that wasn’t enough.
Friday
After Rab had left, Birch sat on the couch, staring at nothing, feeling like all her edges had been dulled. Rab thought Charlie might come back, and although she knew better his conviction had planted its seed in her mind and she couldn’t seem to shake it out again. He might come back. He might. You never know.
She’d decided to sleep on the couch, because she’d been asleep on the couch when Charlie first appeared, and she felt that repeating the same actions might summon him again, like the words of an incantation. She felt ridiculous, but did it nonetheless. It hadn’t worked. All night she’d cramped and stretched under the pilled throw, the couch too short for her long frame – and her brother had not returned. She slept in short bursts, and woke from each one with a heavy thud of recollection: Charlie was here, but now he’s gone. I might never see him again.
On Coillesdene Crescent the car gleamed under its streetlight. The sky was turning, but the streetlamps hadn’t yet switched off, and Birch was glad of them. The tide was out: between buildings, she could see the dawn’s gleam on the long stretch of beach it had left in its wake. Seagulls wheeled overhead, flinging their hi, hi, hi down at the world. The cries were ghostly in the grey streets. Birch climbed into the car, skipping the inspection. She figured, if the car blew up when she turned the key, she’d neither know nor care. And it didn’t, of course. She drove to work wi
th the radio on: Radio Scotland, so she could listen to the news. The fourth story in: Solomon Carradice to be released without charge. Frustration for Police Scotland.
‘No kidding,’ Birch said.
The station was in disarray. Even more than the previous day, she could feel that morale was low: it was in the air. It was 7.45 a.m. when she arrived: just over an hour until Solomon must be released. She’d seen Anjan’s car in the car park. He always used the same space.
As she walked through the bullpen, a few of her fellow officers made eye contact, and she tried to smile for them. She just wanted to make it to the office, get inside, close the door, and regroup. Then, perhaps, coffee. Then she’d figure out how she was going to survive the day.
‘Marm!’
Birch winced, and turned around. Amy clicked over to her on her high heels.
‘I was looking for you yesterday evening, but Rab told me you were fine.’ Her usual cheeriness seemed dampened: the low mood in the place was even getting to Amy.
‘Thanks, Kato,’ she said. ‘Truth be told, I feel like crap today.’ What the hell, she thought, may as well say it.
‘He also told me,’ Amy said, lowering her voice, ‘about what happened last night. I’m so sorry.’
What happened last night, Birch thought. You don’t know the half of it. Rab must have embroidered a little: it was probably a random mugging, as far as Amy knew.
‘Are you okay?’ Amy asked.
Birch shrugged. ‘The other guy came off worse,’ she said, making Amy grin.
‘Kicking arse and taking names, marm?’
‘Something like that.’ Birch began to drift in the direction of her office door. ‘Sorry, Amy, I’ve got to – things to catch up on, you know?’
It was a lie. With Solomon walking free any moment, and Rab asking her to hold off on reporting her attack until Monday, there was nothing for her to do, really, other than sit in her office and worry. But there was a part of her that wanted that: she wanted to be able to just sit and quietly unravel over her brother’s whereabouts. She was well practised at it, after all.
‘Sure thing,’ Amy said. ‘Got to get yourself set up with a new phone, for starters.’
‘I guess I do,’ Birch said. Oh Jesus. The phone. There was that to be anxious about, too.
‘Have you heard anything,’ Amy said, ‘you know . . . last minute? About Solomon?’
Birch shook her head. ‘I’m guessing, from the atmosphere,’ she said, ‘that the release is basically a done deal. But I reckon I know less than anyone.’
Amy nodded, and Birch waited for her to get the hint.
‘Right,’ Amy said. ‘Well, okay.’
She felt bad, then. Sweet Amy, who always tried to paste a smile on, no matter what. She’d been hard done by on the Three Rivers case, for example, yet she’d stayed upbeat.
‘Sorry,’ Birch said. ‘I know this makes no difference at all, but – this is policework. Can’t win ’em all.’
Amy smiled again. There was that same grimness in her eyes. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I just sort of hoped we’d win this one, you know?’
See, Helen? You’ve fucked this up for absolutely everyone.
‘Yeah,’ Birch said, ‘you and me both.’
She’d not been in the office long when someone knocked on the door. She was sitting behind her desk, spaced out, staring at a patch on the wall where there had once been a framed picture. The picture had fallen down, and now there was a nick in the plaster where the nail had been ripped out. It looked like a wound.
At the door, a second knock. Fuck off, Birch thought. ‘Hello?’ she said.
The door opened wide. It was Anjan. He stood in the doorway looking every bit as upright and spotless as usual. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’
Birch tried not to let her various interactions with Anjan over the past week rush back to her, but rush back they did. It felt almost like relief: for a few seconds, at least, she wasn’t worrying about Charlie.
‘Sure,’ she said. Her voice was very small.
Anjan closed the door behind him and approached the chair on the opposite side of the desk. Birch blushed as he gently lifted a small heap of items off the seat and placed them on the floor by the chair leg.
‘Sorry,’ she said, in that same small voice, gesturing around at the room. ‘Sorry about all this.’ She realised she didn’t just mean her office, but everything. Herself. The mess she was in.
Anjan smiled at her as he sat, a warm smile. That surprised her. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
‘You act like I haven’t been in here before,’ he said. ‘They ought to get you a PA.’
Birch snorted. ‘They ought to get me a skip,’ she said. She wanted to say more, but pressed her lips together, hard. She’d been short with him when he’d come over on Wednesday night and she’d been tempted to tell him a lie. She’d been cowardly, and run away, rather than face him. She mustn’t do that again.
‘So,’ Anjan said. For perhaps the first time ever, he looked nervous. ‘I didn’t like how we parted ways last time we spoke. I feel I was insensitive. Provocative, even. And I want to apologise.’
Birch blinked. He was apologising to her? She felt, suddenly, like she wanted to cry. ‘No, Anjan,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything. It was all me. I’ve been trying not to think about how I’ve been this week, not to replay it, but – I’ve been the one in the wrong, no question.’ He looked as if he was going to argue, so she went on. ‘I was just . . .’ She was committed, now. ‘I was disappointed, to be honest. We’ve had such a wonderful—’ Relationship, Helen. Just say it. But she couldn’t. ‘We’ve had such a good time together lately. Like last weekend.’
Anjan nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And so . . . I was just disappointed, I guess. That all this – Operation Citrine, I mean – got in the way of that.’ Birch saw him frown.
‘It didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t have to. I want you to know that. In spite of – well, all that’s been said. I’m still me. I don’t see why it has to change anything.’
Birch was quiet for a moment, turning things over in her mind.
‘Had my client been charged,’ Anjan was saying, ‘then we’d be in a trial situation, and that would be different. Any . . . well, any relationship not of a professional kind would present a conflict of interest. There would be problems.’
She felt as if she were hearing what he was saying after a slight delay, like the continuity on a live broadcast when things get out of sync. She watched his lips move, and then just a second later heard the words. And yet you came to my house, she thought. You invited me to the pub. But she let him go on.
‘I couldn’t have defended Solomon Carradice in court, and continued to . . . well, see you socially,’ he went on. Then he smiled, and said, ‘Why do you think I’ve been pushing so hard to make sure he’s cleared?’
Birch felt her stomach fill, immediately, with dancing sparks. It was, by turns, the most romantic and the most fucked-up thing a man had ever said to her.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Did you just say you pushed for a known scumbag to walk free . . . because of me?’
Anjan’s smile faded. Something crackled between them. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘That was in poor taste.’
Birch pressed a hand to her forehead. ‘It’s a lot,’ she said. Her palm part-covered her eyes. She could no longer see Anjan’s face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to . . . make things right between us. If I could.’
Birch closed her eyes altogether. It made it easier to speak, somehow. ‘I really wanted this man charged,’ she said. ‘We all did. But I have, in particular . . .’ A vested interest, she thought. I have a brother whose life might just depend upon it.
‘I know it’s not my case,’ she said, trying a different tack. ‘But I just . . . it’s personal. It feels personal. For all of us. Do you have any idea what I’m saying?’ She squ
inted one eye open again.
Anjan was nodding. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘This has been challenging for me, too.’
Challenging? She wanted to scream at him. You don’t know the meaning of the word.
‘I guess,’ she said, inwardly urging herself to stay cool, ‘I didn’t expect it of you. That decision, to . . . well, to represent a man who’s obviously very, very guilty.’ She tried to look directly at Anjan. It was hard to do: he looked so sharp, so together. He was beautiful, in every sense of the word. Right now, she felt only half human: ill-slept, hungry, running entirely on worry. Anjan’s presence amplified that feeling.
Birch waited for him to turn cold with her. Waited for the it’s my job line. But he surprised her.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry.’
She felt her eyes widen.
‘You surely didn’t think,’ he said, ‘I took this case because I believed in Carradice? I’m so sorry. I tried to tell you.’
Birch blinked, once. Twice. ‘Tell me what?’
‘That it was the firm’s decision. I was under some considerable pressure. We’re growing our profile, and that means we get requests from defendants who are . . . well, let’s just say they are particularly keen to be found innocent.’
Birch tried not to roll her eyes. ‘Particularly keen,’ she echoed, ‘in the sense that they make it worth your while.’
Anjan nodded. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Though again, I stress, this isn’t me. It is the firm. If we’re willing to defend the guilty, and if we do it well, we can command a higher fee, and thus . . . well, the gyre spins wider.’
Birch nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I know how it goes.’
Anjan looked rueful. ‘You know,’ he said. ‘But I fear you don’t understand. I fear you’ve decided I’m craven. The thought of that has been upsetting me all week.’
Birch gave her head a little shake. ‘It has?’
‘Yes.’ Anjan shifted a little in his seat. ‘That’s why I’ve tried to see you. Why I asked if we could talk. I’ve been thinking of you. Often.’
