Girl Seven

by Hanna Jameson

  I hadn’t expected this response. I was glad he hadn’t been cross with me. ‘Is it normal for people you work for to want to kill someone themselves?’

  ‘I don’t usually get that so much, but bear in mind, people who hire me usually want me to remove people precisely so they don’t have to. It’s a matter of forensics. I’m simply less likely to get caught because I’m, well, professional.’

  A falsely modest smile and spread of the hands.

  ‘But I don’t think you’re strange for wanting to,’ he continued, ‘if that was the actual question you were asking. We all have to vent, in certain ways. Do you want to keep this photo?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ll just look at it too much. Can I keep the rest of the info though?’

  ‘Yeah sure, I can get another. I have them all as PDFs, I just printed these off.’

  DCI Kenneth Gordon.

  I was glad I wouldn’t have the photo. I already felt the creeping obsession with looking into and into his face as if I could find some proof there. It was better to let Mark leave with all the temptation to dwell on it and try to provoke some emotion to drown in.

  ‘OK. Well, be careful in the meantime and I’ll call you tomorrow before we go and see Leo in the afternoon, OK?’

  I nodded.

  Mark gathered up the rest of his compilation. The floor was slick wood and it took him a while to grasp the edges of the papers. I wondered if he was the sort who would keep them, as mementoes.

  ‘You work with Russians, right?’ I asked suddenly. ‘Noel said.’

  I tried to make it sound like casual conversation as I stood up with my hands on my hips waiting for him to go, so I could pursue my own line of investigation.

  ‘Yeah, sometimes. Why?’

  ‘A few of them come in the club sometimes, that’s all. Just wondered if you knew them. They’re called Alexei and Isaak and there’s another one, older. Think they’re brothers.’

  ‘There are far too many Russians called Alexei.’ Mark smirked. ‘You might as well ask me if I know a guy called Dave.’

  ‘Figured.’

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  ‘OK.’

  I counted down ten minutes on the clock as I changed into a clean set of clothes from my bag, and left the apartment again, with a renewed sense of purpose. Nic’s drawing was in my bag. Fuck Noel hiring Nic Caruana. He wasn’t a superhuman. He was a man and men were all movable objects. So much more movable than any of them would care to admit.

  24

  He looked surprised to see me. It was a Sunday so I knew he’d be home.

  I was only a little offended that he hadn’t called me, even to chat, but then he seemed shy. Maybe he was just one of those guys who needed more time to work up to a bold move like that?

  ‘May I come in?’ I found it cute how his expression became coy and awkward. ‘I need to talk to you about something. It’s kinda work. Your work, not mine.’

  ‘Um, Seven,’ he said, saying my name as though it was a word he didn’t understand. ‘Of course.’

  Darsi Howiantz’s house brought a sense of calm over me. I felt safe here. There were no negative associations or memories for once. It was so eccentric, like another dimension, that I could almost kid myself we were no longer in London.

  The room in which he kept his landscape of papers and his models was kept in dim light, with the curtains shut.

  ‘Can I sit down?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He picked up a pile of books from the chair I’d sat in last time. ‘What was it you wanted to talk about?’

  ‘You work with the police, you said?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ He positioned himself across from me, also in the same place he had sat last time. ‘It’s one of the only ways I can apply my research. Otherwise I’m just... blagging my way through an easy life of academia.’

  A nervous smile.

  ‘Have you ever worked with a DCI called Kenneth Gordon?’

  There was a flicker of recognition that he didn’t seem to realize was visible to me.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘So you know him?’

  ‘I’m... not sure. Why do you ask?’

  I cast my eyes about the room. Did I tell him the truth or not? Was lying safer or was it just the preferable easy option? The lazy option.

  After a long pause, I took Nic’s drawing out of my bag and handed it over to him. It was the original. Mark had the photocopy.

  ‘He could be responsible for a violent crime and I was wondering whether you knew him.’

  Choosing his words with care, Darsi held the drawing closer to the light emanating from his desk lamp. ‘If he is responsible for a violent crime, isn’t this a matter for the police?’

  ‘No.’

  There was almost no way for me to tell the truth without coming off like a delusional female. When I was going through a phase of watching grotesque and disturbing horror movies every night, not long after I’d first moved into my old flat and was trying to force my body into feeling a genuine human emotion again, I’d watched something called Rosemary’s Baby.

  It scared me more than most of the others. I wasn’t scared of the supernatural but I was scared of the people. I was scared by the way a female was never to be believed; called hysterical, insane, delusional, dangerous; locked-up, medicated... It was my worst nightmare. I had dreams about it for weeks. In those dreams something faceless was trying to kill me and when I protested a police officer locked me in a cell, in the dark, for the thing to find me.

  I began talking, deciding that I had to, whether I came to regret it or not. ‘A couple of years ago some guys killed my whole family while I was out. When I was in a Relatives’ Room waiting for... whatever, just waiting... a man came in and questioned me alone. He asked me if I’d seen anything and if I knew anyone who’d witnessed anything. But it wasn’t normal. It might sound normal, OK, but it wasn’t, it was bad. It was like I was being threatened. So I said I didn’t know anything and he left. It was that guy, right there, Kenneth Gordon. DCI. Except he didn’t introduce himself as that when he came to question me. He didn’t introduce himself at all.’

  Darsi stared at the drawing.

  ‘Um...’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, this is a lot to take in.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry and I know this sounds like I might be making things up or that I’m hysterical or something but I promise you I’m not. This actually happened and that’s why I need to know who he is and—’

  ‘It’s a very serious accusation.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I can’t go to the police.’ I paused and added an embellishment to reassure him. ‘At least not right away.’

  He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. ‘What do you believe will be the result of you asking me about him? I have heard of... I’ve come across him, yes. But what would you want me to do about it?’

  I didn’t have a lie for that one.

  ‘You’re the only person I know remotely connected to the police and... I guess I just wanted to talk to someone about it who knows him, that’s all.’ I hated that I felt stupid, even though I knew I was in the right. ‘Also, not long after my parents and sister... another boy was killed. He was the only one who saw the guys who did it, and he was killed by a kid who’s in a juvenile detention centre who I know was working on someone else’s orders, someone who’s promised him some sort of compensation if he keeps quiet.’

  Darsi observed the drawing again.

  I looked away. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  He put his glasses back on, took them off, rubbed his eyes again, put them back on. ‘I’m not sure what to believe. Do you have evidence for this?’

  ‘Well, it’s happened to me, isn’t that enough evidence?’

  ‘No, unfortunately, not in a court of law. That it’s happened won’t be enough.’ He seemed to rue the terseness that crept into his voice.

  Standing up, he took the drawing with him to his bureau, where he rifled th
rough what looked like old case folders and photos and professional memorabilia.

  ‘Have you seen Rosemary’s Baby?’ I blurted out.

  He turned his head. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s like when she goes to the doctor and says, “There are plots against people, aren’t there?” But no one believes her even though it’s so obvious, and it’s just because she’s a woman, really. So if a guy came to you and said that this had happened, would you be more likely to believe him?’

  He frowned a little.

  The guy who made models out of decapitated animals and dolls was starting to think I was sounding crazy.

  I trailed off and waved a hand. ‘Never mind.’

  Bemused, he carried on searching for whatever it was he was searching for, muttering to himself, barely audible to me.

  ‘We were on a team-building exercise a few years ago that I was invited to because... I don’t know, I hate the things, but I get on with the people there and they wanted me to come,’ he said. ‘His wife was very sick. She’d been sick for a while, I think. Still is, maybe. This is the man you’re talking about?’

  The photo that he held out contained a group of men all dressed in camouflage gear, holding paintball guns, striking different macho poses. To the right, smiling next to a non-smiling and squinting Darsi Howiantz, was DCI Kenneth Gordon. Only he had hair then. A comb-over.

  A violent urge to throw up punched against my gut from the inside and I had to avert my eyes.

  ‘Fuck, um... Fuck, sorry. Yes. Yeah, that’s him. Sorry, I’m not sure what I wanted you to do or even if there was anything you could do.’

  ‘Have you considered getting the police to question the boy in the juvenile detention centre?’ he asked, sitting back down.

  ‘Well, yes, but he won’t talk. Obviously. Someone’s going to see him tomorrow but I don’t see how that’s going to change anything. I think he’s been promised money or something and it’s probably a lot.’

  There was a silence.

  Watched by the eyes of the figurines, I sighed, realizing that, even with a name, DCI Kenneth Gordon was so far away, so unconnected, so well protected, that ascertaining his guilt, let alone exacting any sort of revenge, seemed about as likely as bringing my parents or sister back from the ether into which they had disappeared.

  My sister would be almost eight now. She’d have grown into her own distinct personality. Already, at such a young age, she’d been talkative. Bolshy, someone had said.

  It wasn’t something I often thought about.

  ‘I believe you,’ Darsi said. ‘I don’t think you’re lying. I think you need to be 100 per cent sure of your theory before you take it anywhere else though.’

  For the first time since Mark had begun pursuing this job for me, I encountered the thought: What if it wasn’t him?

  It had to be, now. It had been him for so long in my mind that now it simply had to be.

  ‘I think I might need a drink,’ Darsi said, glancing in the direction of what I guessed was his kitchen.

  ‘I’m not sure I should have come, sorry.’

  ‘No, I understand why you did. And I really don’t think you’re lying, or delusional. And I’m sorry about your family.’

  I wondered if he was thinking about sex or what we were doing the last time I was here, but when I met his eyes I saw that he wasn’t. He was genuinely sympathetic. I also trusted that he wasn’t going to go and tell anyone or have anyone sent after me. But...

  What if it wasn’t him?

  ‘Is there anything you can do?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said in an apologetic tone. ‘Not within the confines of the law and... my job. You can’t just go investigating a senior colleague.’

  ‘No, I get it.’ I nodded. ‘Sorry for... um, crashing your Sunday.’

  I stood up.

  So did he.

  He took me by the arm and gave me a hug. It took me by surprise. For his skinny frame he had a powerful grasp.

  ‘If you want to come and talk more about it, that’s fine,’ he said.

  He knew I wouldn’t.

  My face was buried in his chest. ‘OK.’

  I knew I wouldn’t.

  I left thinking, What if it wasn’t him?

  What if it wasn’t him?

  25

  Everything was bathed in a low green light, in the dream.

  I always knew when I was in dreams. As a child I’d even been able to wake myself up from them at will. I used to shut my eyes tight, hiding from the monster searching for me in a deserted supermarket, convince myself I was going to open them to see my darkened room, and more often than not I did.

  I never forgot them either. Years later I could recall specific dreams.

  Lucid dreaming, they called it.

  In the dream, I was following her through the corridors of a house, but the house went on for ever. On each door was a house number: 128, 129, 130, 131, 132...

  Up stairs, red hair, up more stairs, looking back at me, footsteps coming up behind me—

  I started running, after her, away from them.

  The men with the blades like this.

  Up and up, no more doors.

  They were going to kill me because I should be dead.

  Green light.

  A door that I turned into, rattling the handle, but when it flew open there was a five-year-old girl with half a head sitting on the lap of a man with a comb-over, blood running from the open brain on to a hand rubbing a thigh and rubbing a thigh—

  I’m here to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you?

  There were pieces of glass under my feet. Pieces of glass embedded in the child’s hands.

  I wanted to reach out and push the pieces of her head back together, wipe off all the blood and take her with me. I wanted to go back and hear what she had had to say that day when I’d walked out.

  Kiki, look!

  But I ran, again, and the footsteps getting closer, two pairs of them.

  ‘Go away!’ I screamed back down the stairs, stumbling, thinking that I was going to die the same way as them, the way I’d been supposed to die...

  Another door. Locked.

  19.

  The girl running ahead of me wasn’t Seiko, I realized.

  Red hair, into a room—

  It was Caroline.

  Room 25. Inside, breathing hard, shaking, locking the door because there was a key and the footsteps disappeared. I waited, sure that they were going to try and hack their way through, but there was only silence.

  Don’t die.

  I wasn’t dying now. Not today.

  I turned and she was in my room. Except it wasn’t my room; it was my old room, in my parents’ house. There was an old pile of art books in the corner. I don’t know why I noticed because she was standing in the middle of the room.

  Caroline.

  This is what made him love.

  Green light.

  There was a Klimt poster on the wall. I used to Blu-Tack the base down and hide a small bag of weed behind it when I was in England. In Japan I didn’t need it.

  She was standing in the middle of the room, watching me with those blue eyes, lascivious in their intelligence. Breathing through her slightly parted lips, she smiled a little. She walked towards me before I walked towards her, back and back against the door, where she took my wrists and held them above my head and kissed me and a surge of energy rose in my chest.

  I wrenched my hands out of her grip and pushed her back and back on to the bed, running my fingers through her red hair, her body lithe and hard under mine. In the green light she looked like a nymph painted by Waterhouse, pale and firm and heaving with desire.

  ‘Ohhhh...’

  In the dream, I knew what her voice sounded like. Like a sigh.

  In the dream, I tore the pencil skirt off that body, my body, pressed my lips against her skin, until she rose up on her knees and put her hand between my legs and fuck, I was so wet, and she slid her fingers insi
de me and there was this weird buzzing sound as she was looking down at me, this weird buzzing sound and this was only a dream...

  I knew this was only in the dream.

  I closed my eyes on her parted lips and red metallic hair falling across her face and her fingers rubbing against my cunt and opened them and Mark’s flat was buzzing.

  My head was clouded with dreamscape and I got up, half walking and half staggering into the living room to answer the intercom.

  ‘He... ahem – hello?’

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

  It was Alexei’s voice, low and urgent.

  They must have followed me here from Noel’s.

  I let them in, because there was no point in trying to keep them out.

  Muttering, ‘Fuck sake...’ I walked back through to the bedroom to pull on a T-shirt and skirt, trying to think myself out of still being so visibly flustered and aroused. I straightened the crumpled duvet and took a quick look at myself in the mirror before they knocked at the door.

  As I opened it they both shoved their way inside.

  ‘Sure, come in,’ I said, closing the door behind them.

  ‘Did you think we wouldn’t find you?’ Alexei spat at me, pacing with rage. His hair was slicked back, giving his face a rabid canine appearance.

  ‘No, not at all.’ My voice was blank and cracked with tiredness. ‘But I had to move suddenly and I thought you’d eventually call me anyway. You still owe me a passport after all.’

  ‘Don’t... get smart with me, you fucking bitch! What was all that shit we hear over the recorder? You try to run and hide, yes? We need you to get recorder from Noel’s office, you just forget about that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t forget. Someone I didn’t want to found out where I lived and then I had to move.’ I folded my arms, infuriating him with my calm. ‘Is this about something else you need me to do or did you just want to give me a telling-off in the middle of the night?’