Talking to the Dead

by Harry Bingham

  “Thank you.”

  Another nod. I turn back to the shooting, pull the ear defenders on this time, and finish the box. Soft hands, hard bullets. When I turn back again, the man is gone.

  My arms are properly tired now, but I’m happy. I take the gun. (And just where, Monsoon design team, am I meant to stow this baby? Pretty frocks are all very well, but they’re not made for carrying concealed weapons.) I also change my mind and take two boxes of bullets, not one. When Rattigan’s army of the undead emerges from Cardiff Bay to snatch me, they’ll need to number at least five hundred and one. Any fewer than that, and I’m ready for them.

  On my way out of the barn, I go over to the cows and promise that they can get some sleep now. Their breath steams, but they make no further comment. A hundred amber eyes follow me out.

  In the yard, nothing has changed. No one is present. Nothing moves. I walk back up the track to my car, and drive back the way I came. I’m thinking about Penry. About Huw Fletcher and Brendan Rattigan.

  But mostly, I think about that kiss with Dave Brydon. Am I now his girlfriend? I don’t think I’ve ever been that before with anyone. I probably came closest with Ed Saunders, but I don’t think Ed thought me reliable, even then. A lover and a friend, yes. A girlfriend, though, I never quite managed.

  Thinking about all this now, and for all my cactuslike charms, I realize I would like to be Dave Brydon’s girlfriend. The sort who would remember his birthday, act appropriately in front of his parents, and remember to wear her most expensive knickers on St. Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if that’s an act I’ll ever be able to pull off, but the thought of it is an appealing one. Something I think I’m ready to try. I feel giddy at the prospect. Vertiginous.

  And on the last stretch home, reentering the city from the valleys above, I think about Dad. I’ve assumed he’s on the straight-and-narrow now, because he tells me that he is and I generally believe what he tells me. But then again, if Dad procured the gun, he did so with remarkable speed and stage management. I could ask outright, of course, but that hasn’t been the way we operate things. When I joined the police force, I made it pretty clear that at home we’d have a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. I’ve never asked. He’s never told. As far as I’m concerned, I’m happy to let it stay that way.

  I also wonder if my dad’s unease about my joining the CID was because he still had things to hide. Things he wouldn’t want my brothers and sisters on the force to know. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered, but it’s the first time I’ve had real doubt about the answer.

  I get home sometime after two. I walk up to my front door with kitten heels and ammo boxes in one hand, gun in the other. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, I don’t feel frightened at all.

  Bedtime. Easier now than it’s been recently.

  I leave the bed where it is and drag out a futon roll and spare duvet from beneath it. Theoretically the futon is for guests, though I can’t remember any guests ever actually using it. The futon goes on the floor where it can’t be seen from the door. In the best traditions of these things, I heap pillows in the bed itself, so it looks like someone’s sleeping there. Then I make myself at home on the futon, glass of water and alarm clock near my head, gun loaded and by my hand. I shove a chair up against the door, which won’t stop anyone from getting in but will make plenty of noise if they do.

  All this is over the top. I know it is. But I feel safe and I sleep like a puppy, which is all that matters.

  In the morning, my alarm goes off too early. I feel tired, because I’m a good three hours short of what I need. But who cares? At least I’ve mastered the art of sleeping in my own home. And I haven’t even smoked since Saturday, which is good going for me, especially given the way things are with Lohan.

  I get up and stare out at the place where I live. I’m right at the heart of Planet Normal. Its strangest resident maybe, but I don’t care about that. I like a place where dads go to work in the mornings and people grumble when the post is late. If Rattigan’s army of the undead is out there waiting for me, they’re well disguised. There are some clouds dotting the sky. Those high, stately ones, that look like ships sailing in from the west. There aren’t many of them, though, and the sun is already well into its stride. It’s going to be hot.

  Drift downstairs. Eat a nectarine straight from the fridge. Make tea. Eat something else, because we citizens of Planet Normal don’t get by on a single nectarine. I unlock my garden shed and open a window in there, because if it’s hot outside, the shed can get boiling. It’ll be too hot even with the window open, but I lock up all the same. I always do.

  I’d intended to shower and stuff, but I did all that last night and I’ve already let too much time drift by to do it all again now. Sharp means sharp, now, Griffiths. Apart from sniffing my wrists to make sure they don’t smell of the firing range, I do as little as I can.

  But I have to get dressed. That’s easy, normally. Select a bland, appropriate outfit from the array of bland, appropriate outfits I have in my wardrobe. I used to own almost nothing that wasn’t black, navy, tan, white, charcoal, or a pink so muted that you might as well call it beige. I never thought those colors suited me particularly. I didn’t have an opinion on the subject. It was just a question of following the golden rule: Observe what others do, then follow suit. A palette of muted classic colors seemed like the safest way to achieve the right effect.

  Since Kay turned fourteen or fifteen, however, she’s campaigned to get me to liven up my wardrobe. It’s still hardly vibrating with life. It still looks something like an exhibition of Next office wear, 2004–2010. All the same, I have options now that I wouldn’t have had a few years back. And today I’ll be seeing Dave Brydon. He’ll be seeing me. I want his eyes on me, and I want his eyes to be hungry ones, sexed up and passionate.

  I dispense with my normal functional underwear and put on a bra and knickers from one of the posher Marks & Spencer ranges. White lace. Summery and sexy. No one but me will see them, but it’s a start. And then what? I’m indecisive to begin with, then opt for a floaty, mint green dress and a linen jacket. Brown strappy sandals. More makeup than I’d usually wear, which isn’t saying a lot.

  I stare at myself in the mirror. Mirrors tell you nothing you don’t already know, huh? This one does. I see a young woman. Pretty. Tick-the-box, good-solid-passing-grade pretty. Also anxious. She looks a bit like she’s off to see the man who might be on the point of becoming her new boyfriend. Good luck, sister, but I don’t think you’ll need it.

  Sharp-means-sharp sends me running from the house. I’ve thrown my gun into my handbag, but the boxes of bullets stay in the house. Va-va-voom over to work, or as va-voomy as traffic allows. One camera almost catches me, but I’m fairly sure I braked in time. Gun from handbag to glove box as I enter the car park.

  I’m there in time to hear the huge overnight news. They’ve gone ahead and raided Sikorsky’s place in North London. Jackson is in London with D.I. Hughes. More people are going up now in support. No briefing today, because there’s no one to give it and because no one wants to hear about yesterday when today is where the action is.

  It’s slightly weird news, and not just for me. The office is all a bit at a loss. The poor guy—D.C. Jon Breakell—who’s spent a week forlornly combing CCTV footage for anything that might be helpful now faces another day doing just that, well aware that there could be developments up in London that make the whole thing pointless.

  And I’m at a loss too. Today was my seeing Dave Brydon day. My floaty green dress day. My day for makeup and girlie sandals. Today wasn’t like any other day of my life. It was going to be my first day practicing to be Dave Brydon’s girlfriend, and I was looking forward to it very much.

  I find him at his desk, grabbing a few things before rushing off to London to join the boss.

  “Hey, Fi,” he greets me.

  No touch. No kiss. Just a look in the eye that tells me I’m not imagining last night.
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br />   “Can I see you? I know you have to run. Two minutes.”

  He hesitates. We are seeing each other. We’re about thirty-six inches apart in a well-lit office and neither of us has lost the power of sight. Brydon clearly doesn’t want the kind of office relationship where we’re both always sneaking off into the stationery cupboard for a snog, nor do I. Still less does he want the kind of office relationship that inserts itself between him and duty.

  But I force the issue.

  “The stairs down to the print room. Almost no one is going to be using them just now, and there are doors at the top and bottom, which we’ll hear if anyone uses them. I’ll go there now. You follow as soon as you’re done here.”

  “Okay. Two minutes. See you there.”

  I run down to the print room stairs, then hang around on the turn of the stairs, where no one can see me. I’m fretting and anxious. Even this wait seems like too long.

  Then the door at the top bangs and Brydon’s tread starts to clatter down. He’s both heavy and light. Heavy, because he’s a biggish lad, and light because he has a natural athleticism, a bounce that carries through into every movement he makes.

  “Hey.”

  “Sorry to grab you. I just had to see you. Sorry.”

  Brydon is on the step above me and I’m talking somewhere in the region of his belly button. “First things first, Fiona,” he tells me. He comes down a step, then hoists me up to where he’d been standing. We’re still not eyeball-to-eyeball, but we’re a lot closer.

  “Do I see D.C. Griffiths in a dress?” he says. “Have all relevant authorities been notified?”

  That’s Brydon humor for you, like it or lump it. “And heels,” I say. “Look.”

  He smiles at me. A nice smile, but I know that half his mind is occupied by the clock. He needs to get off to London as soon as he can.

  There are still no sounds on the stairs. There’s a hum from the print room, where one of Tomasz’s machines is doing its thing, but nothing that needs to disturb us.

  “I just wanted to tell you, I might need to take things slow.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s just … things can get a bit crazy in my head, and slow tends to be better than fast.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t want you to think that because I—”

  I’m not sure what I’m trying to say, so I end up not saying anything.

  “You don’t want me to think that, although you almost walked out into a line of cars on Cathedral Road last night, you’ve got some kind of death wish.”

  “That’s it,” I say. “That’s exactly what I was trying to say.”

  For a moment I think he’s going to kiss me again, and I really want him to. I feel lust pulling at me like wind. But he doesn’t. Fortunately for my composure, he bails out of the kiss and just chucks me under my nose with his index finger.

  “Slow is fine,” he says.

  He’s laughing at me again, and I realize it’s nice being laughed at. Did Ed ever laugh at me in this way? I don’t think so.

  Then he’s off. Up the steps. Heavy and light. Thumping the door at the top open so hard that it whacks against its doorstop. The stairwell echoes with the noise of his departure, a reverberation of wood against metal, then returns to silence.

  I sit on the step, getting my head into shape again. My pulse rate is high, but it’s steady. I count my breaths, trying to bring my breathing down to a more relaxed range. I move my legs and feet, to make sure that I can feel them as normal, which I largely can.

  I’m feeling something, and I think I know what it is. But I do the exercise by the book, and the book says that I have to run through a range of feelings to find the best available match.

  Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Love. Happiness. Disgust. Yearning. Curiosity.

  Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Love.

  Love.

  This isn’t love. Not yet. But it’s heading off in that direction: love, plus a good old splash of happiness. This is the first time in my life that I’ve felt those twins prepare to take up residence. Please make yourself at home, my friends. Mi casa es su casa.

  I go on with the exercise though. Feel the feeling. Name it. Feel it. Put the two things together. Stay with the feeling. Don’t forget to name it. Give it time. And don’t let it take you over. Keep an eye on your heart rate. Watch your breathing. Check to see that you remain “in” your body. Feel those arms. Feel those legs. It can be useful to stamp your feet on the floor to make sure that you feel right down to your feet.

  The door above me bangs open again. Two people. Neither of them Dave Brydon. I don’t know either of them. I budge over on my step to make room for them. They peer at me but don’t say anything, just go on into the print room.

  This isn’t love and this isn’t happiness. But it’s like I’m in the hallway and can hear their music spilling out of the living room. Hear their laughter, see their candlelight. I’m not there yet. I do know the difference. I’ve had just one single date with Dave Brydon. Nothing that remotely constitutes a relationship. These are early, early days, and anything could happen from here. But, for once in my life, for once in my hopeless, crackpot life, I’m not just in the same time zone, I’m actually shouting-distance close to the love ’n’ happiness twins.

  I feel the feelings, piece by miraculous piece. Bum on a concrete step. Heart thumping. A floaty green dress and sandals with two-and-a-half-inch heels. A man who hoisted me up a step because I was talking into his belly button. This is what humans feel like when they are getting ready to fall in love.

  I get up from my step and walk slowly back upstairs to my desk. This is what humans feel like. This is what it’s like to be normal. Fiona Griffiths, human being, is reporting for duty.

  But what exactly that duty is today is not quite clear. There’s a voice mail from Jane Alexander. Her son is ill and she’s been unable to arrange for alternative child care, so she’s stuck at home. She tells me to call her if I need to. In the meantime, though, my interviews for the day are probably off, unless I can find a D.S. who’ll interview prostitutes with me—which, given the recent news, I probably can’t.

  Jackson and Hughes and pretty much everyone else who counts is out of the office, and won’t want to be contacted.

  I’ve got a pile of various tedious paperwork type jobs to do, but few of them are urgent. On the other side of the office, a couple of D.C.s are making piles of empty coffee cups and trying to knock them over by throwing a soft indoor rugby ball at them. There are yells of laughter when they succeed, more yells when they fail. I sometimes think it must be a lot easier to be a man.

  I pull out the notes I made on all those Social Services files. April and Janet. Stacey Edwards.

  There are a million points of comparison between their stories, but there were bound to be. It’s not any old person who becomes a prostitute. It’s the messed-up ones. Broken homes, muddled childhoods, some disastrously wrong steps in adolescence. Janet and Stacey both ended up in care, because their parents were crazy, sick, violent, or useless. In effect, they never knew their parents. The state took over. What kind of person could go through all that and not end up a bit crazed herself?

  That’s part of what hooks me about the Janet and April show. Janet had a crap life, and she fought hard to give her kid a better one. She failed. And yet it’s not her failure which captures me, but the depth of her trying.

  Inevitably, I have the photos of April up on-screen as I review all this. The interesting dead ones, not the dull toffee apple ones. It’s not quite true that April is trying to tell me something. It would be more accurate to say that I already know it—whatever it is—and April’s job is to remind me. I can’t figure it out, though. I stare away from my desk out to the boys fooling around with the rugby ball.

  I should be doing other things.

  In London, they’re searching Karol Sikorsky’s house.

  Last night Dave Brydon kissed me and today he almost kissed me again.

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nbsp; In the glove box of my car, I have a gun. At home I have 490 bullets. The rest are already in the gun.

  I’m thinking these thoughts when I get up to make tea. I’m on my way to the kitchenette when a phone starts ringing. It’s not my desk—it’s Mervyn Rogers’s—but since there’s no one else around to do it, I pick it up.

  It’s Jackson. “Who’s that? Fiona?”

  “That’s right. I don’t think Merv’s around. Do you want me to—?”

  “No, don’t worry about that. Listen. We’re in the house here in London and we’ve come across about a kilo of what we’re pretty damn sure is heroin. It’s going straight off to the lab, obviously.”

  “Okay, so you want me to get onto the lab here—”

  “Yeah. Let’s see if we can make a connection between the stuff we’ve got here and the stuff at Eighty-six Allison Street.”

  “And Tony Leonard? Kapuscinski? People like that. You want me to start seeing if we can connect them to the drugs?”

  “Precisely. And listen, I want as many warrants as I can get. Leonard. Kapuscinski. Sikorsky’s buddies, basically. Do you think there’s any chance that your prostitute—”

  “Ioana Balcescu—”

  “Right, any chance that she’d broaden her evidence? Name some more names?”

  “I don’t know. I can try. But if we’re right, then any number of prostitutes might be able to testify against these guys.”

  “Anything you can get on them. No matter how minor. We just need enough to justify an arrest and a search warrant. I want to start interviewing with a charge sheet behind us.”

  “I’ll get onto it right away.”

  “Take my name in vain, if you need to. Don’t let things get held up for lack of resources.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Okay, good. Any problems, shout. Any breakthroughs, tell me right away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jackson has rung off before I’ve even finished my “sir.” The office seems even quieter now. For a moment, I forget why I’m at Rogers’s desk and not my own, then I remember my tea, then decide against making any.