She turned on the spot for a while, one leg alternating between kicking out to propel her round and tucking inwards towards her ankle. It was what she seemed best at, the spinning around in circles.
I counted six turns to the sultry music in the background, before she stopped, pushing out with her hands as if to drive the camera away, and steadying herself before circling the studio on the tips of her toes. Her arms whirled and she launched into a flying leap.
‘Look at this,’ Mark said, passing me a picture as his eyes flickered between the photos and the computer screen. ‘Emma’s 14th ’08’.
I took it and held it up so that I wouldn’t have to take my eyes off the screen. It was of Clare with Emma, in the kitchen I knew so well. At a glance it was just Clare and Emma, standing side by side, blonde next to brunette.
‘Yeah?’ I said, watching Clare lower herself into a curtsey.
‘Isn’t it funny that she’s kind of… trying to out-pose her? Whose birthday is it? Who’s that a photo of? It’s not a photo of Emma, is it?’
I looked at the photo again. He was right, as he usually was. It was probably meant to be a birthday picture, the sort of picture that was a chance for someone like Clare to show off her daughter. But it wasn’t like that at all. Clare was the one facing the camera, the one with the unnervingly direct stare, as if, standing there next to her daughter, all she could feel was the loss of the person she used to be.
‘Nic…’
‘No, I see it.’
‘No, look.’
I did look, just in time to see Clare smash her forehead into the mirrored wall. She jerked away, held her head as she leant against the glass, and then sent her face crashing into the mirror again.
‘Jesus.’ I felt sick.
‘Shitting… hell…’
She walked back to the centre of the frame on her tiptoes; keeping her balance with one arm while her other hand gripped her forehead. Her hair covered any bruising, but when she twirled, offbeat, towards the camera again, she was crying. It was a very controlled crying, I thought, as if she had learnt to cry while still looking attractive.
Her arms made the motion of wings as she knelt down in front of the lens, her cheeks shining with tears. She covered her eyes, like the heroine in a Shakespearian tragedy, and the video stopped rolling.
We sat there for a while in dumb silence.
I still felt like I was about to throw up.
‘That just happened, right?’ I said.
‘For sure… Got to say, I expected a lot, but I didn’t see that coming.’ He rewound the video enough for us to watch that moment again.
Clare spun towards the mirror, hesitated for a moment and then, with a ferocity that shocked me, smashed her forehead into the glass. If I had head-butted someone like that I would have given myself borderline concussion. Watching it, I could almost feel the impact against my skull.
‘God.’ Mark leant forwards with his chin on his hands. ‘That’s… Hm.’
I wasn’t used to him being rendered speechless. ‘Hm?’
‘It’s interesting.’
‘That’s all you’ve got to say? “Interesting”?’
‘Well, what would you call it?’
‘Fucked-up.’
He raised his eyebrows, as if chiding me for my lack of imagination.
‘And where did you stay last night?’ he asked.
‘With a girl,’ I half lied.
‘Yeah? Who?’
‘She’s called Daisy.’ I grinned at how absurd it was going to sound. ‘She… likes birds.’
Deciding not to pursue that particular subject, Mark shrugged and stood up. ‘It’s interesting.’
While he was in the kitchen putting some shopping away, I rewound the video and watched it again.
‘Wait! Wait for me!’ Mark shouted when he heard the music, darting back into the room to lean on the back of the sofa. ‘Right, go.’
We watched it through again in silence. I thought about the time she had asked me to hit her and the bruise on her face. Had this been where it had come from? I looked at the date; it looked likely.
It’s not his fault, you know.
I put a hand to my mouth.
Sometimes it’s better to just feel something, I guess. Or something… different, at least.
‘Fuck,’ I said, under my breath.
‘What?’
Well, I’d like to know what made you hate yourself so much.
‘Nic, what?’
‘I don’t think he hits her,’ I said, the realization flooding me with nausea. ‘That’s why Emma always let Pat back in the house. It was because it wasn’t him… It was her.’
Mum on one of her head-fucks…
Mark could afford to look so morbidly intrigued; he wasn’t the one who had made so many judgements. I rewound the video, played it again, watched her hesitate for that tiny second before trying to crack her own head open, fists clenching against the glass, the straps of her dress loosening and falling across the cuts at the tops of her arms.
I had been so stupid, so fucking blinkered.
‘Controversial shit,’ Mark said. ‘You want a drink?’
I glanced at the clock and stood up sharply. ‘Can’t, got a meeting.’
25
Mark had been sitting on the living-room floor making a rough collage out of the stolen photos and paperwork when I’d left to meet Mackie. He had also let me borrow a spare firearm, which had felt alien in my hands.
If I made more of my spare time between jobs, like Mark did, then the Underground would probably be where I would spend most of it.
A regal-looking redhead called Portia let me in. I was glad it was her and not the same girl as last time, or Ronnie, even if he did owe me a favour. Hopefully he wasn’t working here tonight and I would be able to avoid him without any fuss.
I ordered a sparkling water that I could at least pass off as a gin and tonic, and leant against the bar.
Some sort of modern jazz was playing, and a girl that I recognized was on stage dancing in a red G-string. Knowing this place, the stones lining the straps of her stilettos would be diamonds.
Mackie was sitting near the stage; I spotted his wispy hairline.
He glanced back at me once and looked away quickly.
My mobile vibrated.
WILL TALK, THEN LEAVE. MEET ME AT THE CAR AFTER, PARKED OUT BACK. M.
‘Caruana.’
I turned and Noel Braben, joint manager and Ronnie’s partner in all other illegitimate escapades, was leaning on the bar. It was almost confirmation that I wouldn’t run into Ronnie and have to explain myself.
‘Braben.’
Noel was a good two or three inches shorter than me, with a weathered face and heavy eyebrows, but the expression in his blue eyes always suggested that he had just told the most hilarious anecdote.
It was odd, seeing such forceful personalities as him and Ronnie work so easily under Edie. But it suited them. They had free rein of the club and enough spare time on their hands to pursue their more lucrative ventures into drugs.
‘That’s a fetching mullet you’re rocking,’ he said.
‘It’s not a fucking mullet, and what did you come as? Where did you get that suit?’
‘It’s Yves Saint Laurent, I’ll have you know.’
‘Nice, was it delivered by Tardis?’
‘Ah, shut up, Bono.’
We both sipped our drinks.
‘Haven’t been around for a bit?’ Noel said. ‘Was Cassie all right?’
‘God, yeah, Cassie was fine. Been busy with work.’ I kept an eye on Mackie but he was still alone. ‘Business good?’
‘Mental. Christmas time.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Girls keep asking for time off though, which is… annoying. Edie’s a fucking soft touch with them but, you know, they can’t have everything…’
‘How’s Caroline?’
‘Dunno.’ He pulled a face. ‘Separated and all.’
‘Fuck, sorry.’
As he waved away the platitude I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring any more. I’d met Caroline once or twice; she was a fiercely pretty and quick-witted accountant with red hair. Listening to any exchange between her and Noel was like listening to sarcasm made into an Olympic event.
‘It’s only a phase, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘She’ll be back. Are you just watching or do you want me to sort you out a lovely lady?’
‘Just chilling.’
‘Wicked.’ He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Gonna entertain, good to see you.’
When he left me I started getting tense. Mackie was still sitting alone. The girl on stage had finished her dance and gone into one of the private rooms off the floor of the main club.
The jazz had been replaced by something more classical. If I wasn’t mistaken the next girl on stage in the white lace was Seven, the Japanese girl. I couldn’t help smiling to myself. She was something else, but then I suppose you had to be, working for these guys. They only hired the best.
‘I could tell you some stories about that sweet Japanese type.’
The man standing behind me at the bar was someone I knew I had seen before, but I couldn’t place where. He looked too young to have the bald head that he did, and had a scar down his left cheek. When he spoke a gold tooth kept winking at me.
‘So could I,’ I replied, taking it slow with the sparkling water.
‘Do you know what she is most partial to?’
‘I remember she liked handcuffs.’
The man was wearing a beige golfing jumper and had a neat moustache. He seemed friendly enough, but the combination of features unnerved me.
‘One of her favourite films, American Psycho.’ He grinned. ‘She likes to re-enact scenes. You know it well?’
Mark and I had quoted it every day for at least a month after we had last watched it. One night when we were hammered on brandy Mark had let slip that once, in the middle of hacking some poor guy to death in Russia, he hadn’t been able to resist screaming, ‘Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now!’ I had laughed for three days.
I raised my eyebrows, smiling. ‘Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?’
‘So catchy,’ the man said, raising his glass.
‘Which scenes?’ I asked.
‘Bathroom.’
‘Video camera?’
‘And coat hangers.’
‘Ha, sick.’
I could believe it of her, I thought, but then there wasn’t much that these girls wouldn’t cater for. It didn’t mean they liked it, they just did it. They were clean, and they were safe, but they were there to fulfil a fetish and to be agreeable. What he was describing was most likely his fantasy rather than hers.
I saw Clare’s forehead smashing into the wall, and my lip curled.
‘“Is evil something you are? Or something you do?”’
I turned back to him again – I’d been hoping that at that point he would have left me alone. ‘Sorry?’
‘Shame on you. Novel’s best line.’
‘My flatmate would know, he has more of a memory for quotes than me.’
‘So, what do you think?’
‘What?’
‘Is evil something you are? Or something you do?’
I smiled, but his eyes were dead above the golfing jumper and I hadn’t seen him blink once. ‘I’ll have to let you know after a few more G and Ts.’
‘I like your style. Have a good night, sir.’
The man put his glass down, bared his teeth at me and left the bar. I was glad he had gone. I looked around the club for Noel, making a mental note to ask who he was, but when I did I noticed that Mackie had gone.
‘Shit…’ I put my glass down, checked my phone but saw nothing. ‘Fuck’s sake, Mackie.’
I walked to the front of the club and back again, scanned the blurred faces for any sign of him, but there was nothing. As I came back towards the bar I bumped into Noel again, who clapped me on the arm.
‘You all right, Nic?’
‘You haven’t seen Mackie Woolstenholme, have you? You know, Mackie?’
‘Damn, spotted him earlier but didn’t speak to him. I’ll keep an eye out.’
‘Thanks…’
‘Hudson’s a character, isn’t he?’
I stared. ‘What?’
‘Hudson. Saw you two chinwagging. He’s a funny guy, a proper livewire.’
‘Oh Jesus…’ I felt as if my stomach had been pitted.
‘You all right?’
‘No… Yes, I mean, yes, I’ve just got to go. Thanks, mate.’
Leaving him looking bemused by my sudden exit, I made a run for the club doors. Outside I skidded on the wet pavements, rounded the far corner in the drizzle and saw Mackie’s red Ford parked under the solitary lamppost.
I jogged up to it, saw Mackie in the driver’s seat, and got into the car beside him, snapping, ‘You could have given me some fucking warning. I—’
I froze.
His throat was cut.
My first instinct should have been to get out, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the relentless cascade of blood, so much of it, running down the inside of his coat, on to his trousers, into the footwell.
The cut was so deep that his head looked almost severed from his body.
His eyes were still open.
When I came to my senses I checked the back seats and scrambled out of the door with such force that I fell and scraped my shin on the road. I shut the door, then opened it again and turned the headlights off.
My heart pounding, I started to sprint away from the car, but stopped when I remembered that my fingerprints were all over the door handle. I went back, wiped away what I could and tried not to look too closely at Mackie’s vacant stare.
‘Oh Jesus, Mack… Jesus…’
I opened the door and searched for his driving licence, wallet and any other identifying documents. As I jogged him his head seemed to move independently of his body. I looked through the back window of the car and the windscreen, but there was no one else around.
Once I had taken his wallet, I shut the door and left by the other end of the road, taking the long route to my car. There was no file, I kept telling myself. I had no file, no shoebox… But I couldn’t risk it.
I stopped and got out my mobile.
*
I was watching both ends of the road when Mark arrived in the passenger seat of a brutal 4x4. It belonged to Roman Katz, an ageless Russian man with lips that reminded me of a dead fish and skin so pale that I could see all the veins in his hands. He freaked the fuck out of me, but he was a good friend of Mark’s and, from what I knew of him, someone who was useful to have at the end of a phone in a crisis.
The two of them were wearing identical black coats with fur-lined hoods.
Katz had started up the Ford after lining the seats with plastic bags and pushing Mackie’s body on to the next seat. He moved without ceremony, with no reaction, not even to the amount of blood.
‘You know this man well?’ he asked me around his elegantly poised cigarette, before he shut the door.
‘I knew him, yeah. I suppose we weren’t really friends.’
‘It can still be strange. People are but associates, but when they are gone it feels similar like… always losing your car keys, I think.’
At least, I thought, Mackie hadn’t died wearing a pair of stilettos. The last time I’d seen him he’d been so pitiful in his resignation; he had known this was going to happen, that he was going to die, and he hadn’t bothered to make a fuss.
Katz drove behind me, with Mackie propped up in the next seat, while Mark followed us in Katz’s 4x4. He hadn’t asked me what had happened and took my basic explanation at face value, though I expected he would ask more questions later.
‘We were going to go out for a drink,’ he said. ‘But this was as good a social occasion as any.’
‘Yeah, sorry to drag you guys out.’
‘No, I’m serious. Roman is like
you, he doesn’t know how not to work.’
We parked up outside a landfill, covered the Ford in petrol and set fire to it. I could taste copper on my tongue again and I felt light-headed suddenly, but I was sure it wasn’t guilt. I couldn’t stop watching the car through the thick plumes of smoke being carried off towards the M25, searching for the outline of Mackie’s body as if I expected him to come walking straight out of the wreckage.
I stared, mesmerized, until Katz announced that he was going to go home to his wife. He never raised his voice when he spoke, and he spoke slowly, as if he expected others to strain to listen rather than exert himself in any way.
‘I owe Mark many favours,’ he told me, shaking my hand with the sensation of wet lettuce leaves. ‘It is of no inconvenience to me. Besides, a healthy fireplace at Christmas, it is good for the soul, do you not think?’
He chuckled to himself, let go of my hand and got into his 4x4. After a brief exchange with Mark in Russian he left us alone, shivering, by the landfill.
‘I fucking hate that guy,’ I said.
‘Every time…’
‘I know, I know, he looks worse than he is.’
‘You know who it was?’ Mark asked as we leant against the bonnet of my car, watching the flames. ‘Who offed him?’
‘Hm…’ I sighed. ‘It was Hudson. I only took my eyes off him for a moment… God, tonight was such a fuck-up, you have no idea. This whole thing… Such a fuck-up.’
‘What’s going on with you?’ He ruffled the back of my hair. ‘This Clare thing… moving flat… Felix Hudson near cutting people’s heads off… I wish you’d fucking tell me.’
When I tried to reply I realized that I was crying. The boot had flown open, hanging in the air like the tail of a helicopter. The burning shell of the car looked to me like rotor blades and the roar of the tall flames sounded like vehicles, like shouting, like gunshots, like warfare.
I rubbed my cheeks with both hands but the tears kept coming.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
Mark lit a cigarette with one hand, ruffled my hair a bit more, and didn’t say anything. It was nice of him to spare me the embarrassment of a proper acknowledgement.
Something You Are Page 20
