‘Nothing. Don’t look.’
Adele reached for Ryan and jerked his arm, pulling him into her waist. The two heavies took the dog’s body out of sight. The sound of cameras going off filled the air like perverted birdsong.
Dean turned to the snappers. ‘Fuck’s sake, leave us in peace, will you?’
He ushered Adele and Ryan towards a waiting car.
‘Billy.’
It was Rose behind him, on her mobile and dragging Jeanie. She handed him the lead. He petted Jeanie, who was whining softly.
Rose covered the mouthpiece of her mobile. ‘She went mental when they dumped the dog.’ Then into the phone: ‘Yes, that’s correct.’
She turned away. Billy kept stroking Jeanie, pulling her emaciated body to him and sinking his nose into her fur.
‘It’s OK,’ he whispered. ‘Everything’s fine.’
There was a crunch of gravel as the Whitehouse limousine sped out of the churchyard, followed by photographers clicking away.
Rose was back. ‘Just spoke to the Dog and Cat Home, they got a collie in last night. A girl came to pick him up, said she was the owner. By her description it sounds like the same schemie airhead who was with Wayne Mackie at the hospital the other day.’
‘Christ. Who could do that to a dog?’
‘Come on, and bring Lassie with you. We’ve got another story to write.’
22
‘I heard about what happened.’
Billy glanced up and saw Zoe standing over him, looking concerned. He nodded at his screen.
‘Just finished writing it up with Rose now.’
Zoe spotted Jeanie curled up under the desk. ‘You brought her into work?’
Billy stared at Zoe. ‘I didn’t want to leave her at home alone.’
‘Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you got her.’
Billy pictured Adele on her doorstep, refusing to take the dog.
‘Jeanie’s fine, aren’t you, girl?’ He turned to Zoe. ‘It’s only until she gets used to the pills.’
He thought about the blister packs stolen from Charlie in his pocket. He was itching to take something, to feel the dry shape of a capsule in his throat as he swallowed.
‘I need a piss,’ he said.
Zoe tried to reach for him but he was already walking towards the toilets.
‘Meet me for a coffee downstairs?’ she said.
Billy stopped and turned. ‘Sure. Take Jeanie with you.’
He watched as Zoe led the dog to the stairs, then he made for the bogs. Inside he popped two morphines and two methamphetamines. He still hadn’t opened the mood stabilisers. He had Jeanie’s phenobarbital in his pocket too. He stared at the packet, wondered what they would feel like. He put all the blister packs back into his pocket, splashed some water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror. His skin felt waxy, as if the water had slid right off it on to the floor. He prodded his cheek, then rubbed at the bump on his temple. Was it hurting? He was having trouble telling. He cricked his neck widely and accidentally smacked his head on the hand dryer.
‘Fuck.’
He stared at the hand dryer, which had gone off, blasting air downwards, noise like an aircraft engine. He banged his head on it again, deliberately this time, and harder.
The sound of a door opening. A suited guy came in, thick around the middle, shirt untucked. Billy put his hands under the dryer and rubbed them together. Pain shot through his head and palms, all the injuries talking to each other.
He yanked at the door and left.
Downstairs in the cafeteria, Zoe was sitting next to the huge glass wall at the back of the room. Outside, a couple of smokers, then across the road the arse end of the Crags, the tail of the Radical Road slashing across the hill. He couldn’t escape it.
He grabbed a coffee and sat down.
‘I heard you were inside the church for the memorial service,’ Zoe said.
He could feel her stare, but kept his eyes on Jeanie.
‘Who did you hear that from?’
‘Rose told me.’
‘Since when were you and Rose best pals?’ Billy didn’t like the sound of his own voice. Every syllable made his head throb.
‘We’re not. Look at me, Billy.’
He raised his eyes. It was blinding sunshine outside, the Crags in heavy shadow. A pair of gulls traced routes across the cliff face. The light outside gave Zoe a diffuse halo around her hair, her face in shade like the cliff. He couldn’t make out her expression. He widened his eyes, felt air on his eyeballs. His hands were tingling in Jeanie’s fur, creepers of sensation climbing up his forearms.
‘Rose is worried about you.’
‘She’s got no need to be.’
‘I’m worried about you, too.’
‘I thought we established all this a long time ago. Everybody’s worried about little Billy.’
Zoe sighed. ‘Why are you being like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘Weird. Uptight. Different.’
‘You know why.’ Billy’s voice came out loud. The sound of it sent needles into his brain.
‘Calm down.’
Billy’s leg twitched. Jeanie stood up and circled his chair, licked his outstretched hand, then settled again.
‘I know you, Billy,’ Zoe said.
He looked past her at the Crags.
‘At least, I used to.’
His phone beeped. He stared at his coffee on the table, trying to make sense of the swirling patterns of steam rising off the oily surface.
‘Aren’t you going to see who that is?’
Billy shrugged, then took his phone out. A text. I want to see you. The Crags pub. Now. He pushed the phone back in his pocket.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘What is it?’
‘Got another lead on this story.’
Billy stood up and made a noise to Jeanie. She rose with a flick of her tail.
Zoe stared at him, but didn’t get up. ‘Was that Adele Whitehouse?’
Billy looked at her, her face dark against the glare outside.
‘No.’
23
He was sweating by the time the pub came into view. Wet patches under his arms, a strip of moisture up his back, a fusty heat radiating from him. He smelled of pills and stress. When did he last have a shower?
He looked down. Jeanie was panting heavily. This stupid fucking sunshine, when would it end? It was unnatural, killing them all with cancerous shards. To his left Salisbury Crags throbbed with energy, the gorse blazing away.
The tables in the beer garden were busy. He stopped and scanned them, but no Adele. He went in, Jeanie trotting behind.
The pub was almost empty. Just two old-timers at the bar in overcoats, of all things, and Adele tucked away in a corner by the dartboard. Her bug-eyed sunglasses were pushed up on to her head, that beautiful red hair spilling out of the sides. She was frowning and fidgeting with a slice of lime in a tall gin and tonic.
She spotted him and stopped fiddling, tried to put on a calm face. She sucked the lime juice off her fingers and made an involuntary grimace.
‘You came,’ she said.
Billy was standing over her.
‘I came.’
‘I didn’t know if you would.’
‘Yes you did.’
‘Did I?’
Billy nodded at a second gin on the table, condensation glistening on the glass.
She smiled.
‘I got that on the off-chance. I figured if you didn’t show, I’d manage to take care of it myself.’
She nodded at a stool.
‘Just a sec.’ He handed over Jeanie’s lead and went to the bar. He got them to fill a soup bowl with water for the dog. While he was waiting he glanced back. Adele had her face buried in Jeanie’s fur, nuzzling her and stroking behind her ears. Jeanie’s tail flicked against the leg of the table. It was intimate, like a lovers’ embrace. He turned back to the bar and spotted a bottle of that beetroot s
chnapps high on a gantry. His stomach flipped and he had to hold the bar for support.
Back at the table, he clunked the bowl on the floor and Jeanie began lapping at it, water spilling over the sides and darkening the wood.
He sat down. ‘So.’
‘So.’
‘You wanted to see me?’
Adele looked suddenly vulnerable. ‘I bet that made quite a story for your paper.’
Billy shrugged.
‘You did write it up, didn’t you?’
Billy nodded. Adele looked at him, her eyes glassy. She was stoned again. Always stoned.
‘Rebus’s throat was slit.’ She gripped her glass, her fingers tense and pale. ‘From ear to ear. What kind of sick fuck does something like that?’
‘The Mackies.’
Adele nodded. ‘That’s what Dean said. Are you sure?’
Billy shrugged. ‘A girl picked the dog up from the Dog and Cat Home yesterday. The description fits a girl Rose and I saw with Wayne Mackie at the hospital.’
Adele lowered her eyes. ‘Dean is going to kill them all.’
Billy looked at her legs. She was still wearing her memorial outfit from this morning. Short black skirt riding up her thighs, legs crossed, killer heels.
‘You have to get away from him,’ he said.
‘I can’t.’
‘He’s dangerous.’
She looked up. ‘You think I don’t know that?’
‘Just leave.’
She laughed, sarcastic and hollow. ‘Just like that, yeah? He’d kill me. And where the hell would I take Ryan anyway?’
The question hung in the air. Billy didn’t have an answer.
‘Ryan is distraught.’
‘Shouldn’t you be with him?’ He had no idea why he said it.
Adele’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who the fuck are you, the parent police? He’s at home, actually, and Magda is there. I had to get out. OK?’
‘Sorry.’
Silence at the table. Just the gentle snuffling of Jeanie. Billy stared at Adele’s legs, her smooth calves, her manicured toenails perfect blood red. He felt his face and hands tingle, seemed to see sparkles in front of his eyes, tiny explosions of light. He scrunched his eyes shut then opened them again, but that only made it worse. He could smell burnt coffee, an overpowering aroma. He looked round the pub. The barman was standing flicking through the paper. The coffee machine was untouched.
‘The police aren’t sure that the Mackies killed Frank,’ Adele said. ‘They say their alibi seems pretty tight. They were in a club till well past Frank’s time of death. Hundreds of people were in there with them.’
‘Maybe they got someone else to do it. Or maybe it was just an accident.’
‘An accident?’ Incredulity in her voice. She sighed, a tremor in her breath. She gulped at her gin. ‘I can’t handle all this.’
Billy tried to reach for her hand, but she looked nervously round the empty bar and pulled away.
‘Everything will be OK,’ he said. It sounded weak, worse than saying nothing.
She took a deep breath and looked at him. ‘I have some coke. Fancy a line?’
Billy felt his heart crashing against his ribs. He nodded.
Adele picked up her handbag and stood up, smoothing her skirt down. She swayed a little, like a breeze might knock her down.
‘Meet me in the disabled toilets in two minutes. Don’t be obvious.’
Billy watched her go, his eyes on the curve of her skirt. He looked round. The pub was still almost empty. The barman was the same young guy who’d been working here the last time he was in, and he was watching Adele head round the corner towards the toilets, his eyes on her body.
Billy glugged at his gin till it was just sweating ice and lime snug in the bottom of the glass. He stroked Jeanie, patted her and ruffled the scruff of her neck. He gently and calmly looped her lead around the table leg, whispering in her ear the whole time.
‘I’m just going to the toilet, OK?’
She had plenty of length to mooch around. He’d be back in two minutes. He got up, cringing as his chair scraped the floor. Jeanie flumped on her haunches and scratched at her ear. She watched him walk away.
He tried to look nonchalant, his arms and legs moving awkwardly as he pushed himself onwards. He caught that burning smell again but didn’t look round. His pulse was juddering as he pushed open the toilet door.
Adele was bent over the cistern, holding her hair back with one hand, smoothly snorting a thick line with the other. She used a stainless-steel straw, not a rolled-up note. She blocked a nostril and sniffed the sticky hit up as high as she could. She gave Billy a vacant stare, then her eyes widened. She switched hands with the straw, held her hair back with the other hand, and took a second hit from the coke, pulling at her nose and shaking her head afterwards.
There was another thick line of coke already chopped out. Adele handed the straw to Billy.
‘Don’t say anything, just do it.’
He bent and took the hit, stopping halfway to change nostrils. He felt the surge in his brain immediately. His head was a balloon full of water, ready to burst. The lump on his temple pulsing away into the cosmos. He felt his muscles and sinews stretch and tighten, his blood hammering through his arteries.
He straightened up, making guttural snorting sounds, and looked at her. She checked herself in the mirror, running a finger softly around her eye socket and over her cheek, where the shadow of a bruise remained. She leaned in over the sink, her face only a few inches from the glass. Her skirt was stretched tight across her arse. Her top had ridden up, revealing a sliver of tattooed skin at the small of her back. She produced a lip balm, smudged some on a finger and ran it across her mouth. Billy couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She was smiling into the mirror. ‘Like what you see?’
‘You know I do.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
She smacked her lips together. It was obvious and corny, but he was sold. He edged across the room until he was standing behind her. He saw himself in the mirror, his head above hers. He looked like a wax model, inert and lifeless. She moved her arse against him and his cock throbbed at the contact. She ground against him some more. She looked desperate for something. Maybe a way out of this whole mess. But the two of them were just getting deeper into it. She lowered her hands and braced herself against the taps, pushing against him. She was looking at herself in the mirror, not him. They were both staring at her.
‘Fuck me,’ she whispered.
He lifted her skirt up and rubbed her panties. He moved the underwear aside and slipped a finger inside her, then two. She let out a tiny breath, like she was in pain.
‘Sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
He didn’t know what she meant.
He unbuckled his belt and pulled his trousers and shorts down. His cock sprang up against her bare buttocks. He removed his fingers as she guided him inside her, pushing against him so that he went in deep.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.
‘Don’t speak.’
He heard the sound of Frank’s body rolling over the top of the Micra. He felt his head smack against the windscreen, pain shooting through his body. He moved in and out of her as she put her hands on the mirror and lowered her head. He wanted to explode inside her, fuck the pain and guilt and bullshit away.
She lifted a hand from the mirror, raised her head and slapped herself in the face. It was a clumsy action, but hard, and her head rocked with the impact. He froze. She looked at him in the mirror.
‘Don’t stop.’
‘But . . .’
‘And don’t fucking speak.’
She ground against him faster and he began again, in and out, feeling himself close to coming. She slapped herself again, harder this time, then again and again. Her hair was tangled in a mess over her face, but he could see her skin was red, her eyes wet, marks of tears on her cheeks. She kept hitting herself as he thru
st against her, forcing her pelvis into the edge of the sink.
He saw something out of the corner of his eye, a red flash, darkening to purple. He turned his head, but the glimmers moved too. He suddenly felt sick, his nostrils full of the stench of burning. A searing pain pummelled across his forehead and down his side, making one side of his body convulse in shock. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face contorted and melting, then he lost all control of his body, felt himself falling backwards towards the cold floor, his mind disintegrating into blackness and silence.
24
He stood at the top of the Radical Road, gazing out over a city shimmering in starlight, watching himself drive up Queen’s Drive down below. The Micra was huge, three times a normal car size, with tracks instead of wheels and a strange glow radiating from inside. He could clearly see himself at the wheel, Zoe alongside, Charlie smacking the back of his seat, all three of them laughing.
An army of people marched down the road, not flinching as the Micra ploughed through them like a tank, crushing them or knocking them high up into the air. The people marched on into the slaughter. The figure of him at the wheel was laughing as he smashed into body after body.
Up on the cliff, he shook his head. He launched himself from the edge and flew upwards before swooping down towards the copse of trees where the Micra-tank was still creating carnage. As he got closer he saw that the people weren’t random strangers, they were arranged in repeating groups – him, Adele and Ryan pulling a collie on a lead. They were smiling as they were torn apart by the vehicle, sharing a serene, angelic look which made him lose concentration and tumble out of the sky, down towards the mass of destruction below, arms swiping at the air, wind shrieking in his ears, lungs unable to breathe, heart dead, a cold stone in his chest. He hit the ground and it felt like an embrace.
Then came the pain. It didn’t sweep in or sneak up, but landed like a jackhammer in his head, crushing all thought. His body stiffened with the intensity of it, every nerve ending alive with the stimulation, sending screaming messages to his brain. His brain. Pulsing and throbbing and aching, it felt as if it was desperate to escape his skull, blinding flashes across his forehead and temples, thrusting round to the base of his neck and back again, no escape.
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