Girl Seven

by Hanna Jameson

  With a snarl, Alexei whirled around and grabbed me by the throat, dragged me to my knees and screamed into my face, ‘Fuck you! You know I could kill you, bitch. I will rip your fucking head off! You do what we say; you are mine! When we do not need you any more I WILL FUCK YOU UP, you fucking whore, I’ll make you suck my fucking dick because you do what we say! You understand!’

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Jamming my tear-streaked face into his crotch: ‘You fucking understand? I will tell you what to do tomorrow, and you will fucking listen! You understand?’

  Isaak was silent.

  ‘You fucking whore.’

  Alexei dropped me, threw me to the floor like a mannequin, and then the two of them left.

  I hadn’t even had the sense to plead for my life, I’d been so taken by surprise.

  Shaking, I scrabbled back in the direction of the door to check it was closed and locked, but they wouldn’t be coming back tonight. They wouldn’t need to. They’d made their point. The longer I sat there trying to stop myself from counting and fighting for breath the more my throat began to hurt, and I stood up on unsteady legs to go and get a glass of water.

  I took the glass into the bathroom to wash my face and had to look away from my red and puffy-eyed reflection.

  Sitting down on the bed and rocking backwards and forwards, I smoked a cigarette, frantically inhaling the smoke into my lungs as though it was fresh air. One dagger was under my pillow and the other was in the bag of money.

  I was going to have to kill them all and that was the moment I decided.

  26

  There was a voicemail from Alexei the following morning that I didn’t listen to. I changed into my suit and the persona of Detective Naoko Mishima and headed straight out to meet Mark, who was driving us to Feltham once more to talk to Leo. Feeling pessimistic and disheartened, I didn’t speak much in the car.

  There was a faint ring of bruises around my neck but they were covered by a yellow chiffon scarf that didn’t suit me.

  ‘Kenneth Gordon was raised in Kent,’ Mark told me, doing the talking for the both of us. ‘No children; he has, er... sperm count problems. Married for thirty-five years to the same woman, Madeline Gordon, but she was hit by early onset dementia at the age of forty-six. She’s fifty-one now and had some in-house care. But a few years ago she had to be moved into a home. It’s pretty sad.’

  ‘How do you find all this out?’ I asked, unsure whether to feel sympathy for the man I already felt as if I knew, but who might be the wrong man...

  Sick wife who needs round-the-clock medical attention.

  And what if it wasn’t him?

  What if I killed him and it wasn’t him?

  ‘I’m trying to find out if he’s ever worked as an informant or if he’s ever sold info to anyone I know,’ Mark said, ignoring my question. ‘If he has, it’s only a matter of time before I find out. There’re only so many people an officer of his rank would talk to. I mean, there’re only so many people I know who could afford him. Nic would be one, but he uses someone else.’

  ‘Sounds common,’ I remarked with a dark smile.

  ‘I’d tell you how common, but you’d never call the police again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t anyway.’

  ‘They have their time and place.’

  ‘Do you think Leo will talk to us?’

  A pause. ‘No. But it’s worth a try. Maybe appeal to his conscience if he has one.’

  ‘Do you think he will talk to us if I tell him the truth?’

  ‘Well, there’s a time and place for that too.’

  Mark left his car in the visitors’ parking and walked us through the same doors as last time. The same warden looked me up and down and the same one took us through to the interrogation room while trying to see down my shirt.

  ‘You should try wearing that to work.’ Mark snorted as we sat down to wait for Leo. ‘Must be the air of professional corporate woman. Look at these guys: they’re just gagging, no pun intended, to lie down and have some girl walk up and down their backs and whip them.’

  My dream about Caroline from the night before sprang to mind and I had to look at the floor. It was unnatural, surely, to find another human being so fascinating when you had never even spoken to them.

  ‘Have you ever met Noel’s wife?’ I asked as we waited in the tiny claustrophobic room, instantly wishing I hadn’t.

  To my gratitude, Mark didn’t react with scorn. He barely reacted at all.

  ‘Caroline? A few times. Have you?’

  ‘I’ve only seen her, twice, in passing.’ I blushed.

  ‘She’s one of the quickest people I’ve ever met. Fast, serious and extremely, extremely appealing. You know what I mean, if you’ve seen her.’

  It was nice of him to indulge me with this trivia. ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘Yeah. Wouldn’t want to ever get on the wrong side of her, but she’s nice.’ He glanced at me, and then continued. ‘Noel feels overmatched, but then he’s right. If life were a Regency costume drama she would have been married off into her own class and they both know it, but that’s not how love works, is it?’

  I swallowed, unsure as to whether the knowledge was making me feel worse or better.

  Mark nudged me. ‘You’re not the only person who’s ever had to look at a marriage from the outside, you know. For a while you’re not sure whether you want to replace the other person or become them. But it’s not their identity, it’s their memories you want. Yeah?’

  I exhaled audibly. ‘You sound like you have some experience here.’

  ‘Well—’

  Footsteps, the door opened, and Leo Ambreen-King entered with a warden holding two cups of tea. I never did get to hear what’s Mark’s experience was because Leo sat down and glared, and I became choked up and panicked.

  The warden loitered for a moment until Mark sipped his tea and said, ‘Thanks,’ indicating that, yes, he should definitely leave us alone.

  ‘No comment,’ Leo said, as soon as the warden had left.

  ‘We haven’t yet asked you a question.’ Mark sat back in his chair, amiable.

  ‘No. Comment.’

  ‘Who did you call after the last time we spoke to you?’

  Eyes to the table. ‘No comment.’

  ‘You must have called someone. He tried to kill her.’

  It was as if he forgot his script. Leo looked up, stricken, unable to keep his fear from his young eyes. He unfolded his arms, which dropped to his sides.

  ‘What?’

  Mark indicated his head at me. ‘The man you called, the one who paid you to kill Nate Williams, he tried to have her murdered when you alerted him that two people had come to see you. He knew she was on to him, you see.’

  I could hardly believe what Mark was saying.

  Leo was gazing at me, open-mouthed.

  Mark raised his eyebrows, encouraging me to elaborate.

  I took a breath. ‘The boy you killed, Nate Williams, he saw the faces of the men who murdered my entire family. He was the only one who did. I know someone paid you to do it, no matter what you say, and I know he was a police officer. He may have given you a false name but he’s really called Kenneth Gordon and he has a shit comb-over and you know who I mean, right?’

  Leo looked between us, face wide, a living exclamation mark. ‘Who the fuck are you? You crazy!’

  ‘You fucking listen to me!’ I snapped, taking the drawing out of my pocket and sliding it across the table at him. ‘This is him, isn’t it! He’s said he’ll sort you out when you leave, with money and a job or whatever shit he’s promised you, but he won’t. Know why he won’t? Because he’s a liar. He’s a liar and he had you kill a boy! This piece of shit tried to have me hacked to death after you spoke to him – now admit it! Fucking admit it!’

  Cringing. ‘You ain’t police?’

  I wanted to climb over the table and punch him in the face, pummel him into the floor. ‘Oh, have a gold star! Well fucking done!’

>   ‘Look.’ Mark stood up, one hand on my shoulder as if to hold me to the ground. ‘Let’s all just calm down for a moment, OK?’

  ‘I can tell ’em!’ Leo glowered, baring his teeth. ‘I can tell ’em you ain’t the police, Inspector.’

  I sat down. ‘Go on. I bet they’ll believe the word of an illiterate child-killer over us.’

  ‘Who the – what the fuck are you asking me?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Leo, we know you’ve been promised money from DCI Kenneth Gordon,’ Mark interrupted me, which was probably for the best. ‘DCI Kenneth Gordon is responsible for the deaths of her parents, her sister, almost her own death... after you told him we’d come to see you. We’re just asking you to stop lying. He’s not going to keep his promises to you. You must know that. What obligation does he have to someone like you? You’re nothing. You are nobody to someone like him. His association with you is a piss-stain and you won’t ever see him again. You will never see anything of what he’s promised you, not one thing. You know that, right, Leo?’

  Leo seemed very small suddenly, shrinking down in his chair and shielding himself with his forearms and trying to duck his face beneath the collar of his uniform shirt.

  I wondered what kind of life he led in here. Was he the sort of boy who had learnt by way of the cigarette burns down his back that the only way to assert your authority was with increasingly brutal acts of violence? Would he talk to me, take me seriously, if he knew I was capable of hurting him? Because that was the only language he understood?

  He must have known that whatever he had been promised was a fantasy, but he probably wanted to believe it, even now. It was the only way his crime could be justified. Without the reward, another kid was dead and he wouldn’t even be able to enjoy any benefits from it.

  ‘I don’t know what the fuck you talking about,’ he said, raising a hand to his mouth and curling it into a fist.

  I was still standing.

  I put both hands on the table and leant forwards a little, speaking quietly. ‘Leo, I’m going to find DCI Kenneth Gordon and bring him to justice with or without your help. You just need to think very carefully about whether you want to be on my good side or my bad side when that happens.’

  He looked me up and down.

  I was barely blinking. ‘If you’re on my good side, I have a reward for you that’s better than anything that he promised you, because I’m going to reward you with your life. You’ll get to leave behind your sorry fucking episode as collaborator with the scum who killed my family, and live whatever piece-of-shit life an insect like you can make for yourself.’

  My hands were shaking a little and I tried not to let it creep into my voice.

  ‘If you don’t tell me the truth right now, and end up on my bad side, I’m going to find DCI Gordon, cut out his insides and decorate him with them like a fucking Christmas tree, and then... one day... maybe when you get out of here but maybe before, I’ll find you and do exactly the same to you. They won’t even know if you’re a boy or a girl by the time I’m done with you.’ I had moved so far across the table we were almost face to face. ‘Now you seem to think you’re a pretty good liar, so look at my face. Do you think I’m fucking lying?’

  Mark didn’t say anything else.

  Leo stood up, never taking his eyes off me. ‘You... You fucking crazy...’

  I kicked the leg of the table and the sudden noise made everyone flinch. ‘He paid you, Leo! Admit it, he fucking paid you!’

  Leo backed away against the wall, turned and started banging on the door of the interrogation room.

  ‘I wanna go back!’ he shouted, still looking at me as though I was about to attack him. ‘Hey! Oi! I wanna back now! Oi, lemme out!’

  I wanted to cross the room, grab him by the back of his collar and smash his face into the closed door until he confirmed to us what we both knew. I wanted to be able to make him tell us what we needed to know. I wanted to hurt him so much, with a heavy violent need right in my gut, that it scared me a little.

  Taking deep breaths, I forced myself to sit back down, and exchanged a look with Mark.

  I am sitting on a mountaintop.

  Leo continued hammering on the door with both fists.

  I can hear the wind in the trees.

  But I wanted to smash his face into the door until there was nothing left.

  I couldn’t read what Mark might have been thinking.

  ‘Lemme out! Oi! OI! LEMME OUT! FUCKING LET ME OUT!’

  27

  ‘I don’t drink,’ I said when Mark offered me a whiskey in his kitchen after driving me back, waving away the bottle on sight.

  ‘You should,’ he replied, pouring himself one. ‘I think you’d make a fabulous angry drunk.’

  ‘You think I have repressed anger issues?’

  ‘Girl, I know you have repressed anger issues. I’ve seen them in action. In fact, calling them repressed is a bit of an exaggeration. You make a shotgun in the face look repressed.’

  His tone was good-natured but he must have been saying it for a reason.

  ‘You think I went too far,’ I said, hoisting myself up to sit on the worktop next to the cooker and taking off my jacket, but not the chiffon scarf.

  He took a sip of whiskey and thought. ‘I think we could have got further by making him feel worthless rather than scared, but you were in the zone. It was a bold move and it could have worked. I wouldn’t regret it too much.’

  I didn’t. I wished I could have gone further. So much further.

  ‘You’d be a natural at my type of work,’ Mark said with a wink. ‘Don’t let that go to your head too much.’

  ‘Can’t we just torture it out of him?’ I asked, looking him right in the eye. ‘I mean, can’t you just torture it out of him?’

  ‘If he wasn’t incarcerated, but—’

  ‘No, not Leo. Gordon.’

  It seemed like a simple proposition, but I didn’t expect Mark to react with such sensitivity to the idea. He sipped his whiskey and took a breath.

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it, no,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  He put his glass down on the work surface and turned to face me. ‘Because if I said to you, “Did you kill these people?” you’d say no, wouldn’t you? Because you’d know you hadn’t.’

  ‘Well... yes.’

  ‘Now imagine I kept asking you, with the intention of getting an admission, “Did you kill these people?” and all the while I was flaying pieces of skin off your back. Do you think you’d keep telling me the truth? Or would you just tell me what I wanted to hear, so it would be over and I could just kill you?’

  For a second, I tried to imagine him flaying someone alive and wondered if he ever had, but just as quickly I pushed all the mental images away in disgust. Even though he was working for me, even though I heard the little hints and offhand comments, I couldn’t picture him actually torturing someone.

  My lip curled a little. ‘No. No, I guess I’d just tell you what you wanted to hear.’

  ‘You can’t torture an admission out of someone. You can torture information out of someone because information is there to be checked and confirmed but otherwise... hell, torture him for punishment, Seven, not for an answer. At least then it’s fun.’ He grinned. ‘And more importantly it’s worthwhile, of course.’

  I tried to estimate the number of people he might have killed and tortured but gave up.

  ‘Are you wondering how many people I’ve killed?’ he asked, eyes sliding sideways at me.

  For the first time since I’d met him, I saw something in his face that scared me: a kind of repulsive elation. For a moment, I thought he was the Devil himself. Maybe it was a similar expression that my grandmother had seen in me that had made her feel so uneasy? Well, that and what had happened with the bastard cat. But that had been an accident, obviously. At least I think it had been.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yeah, you were, but I don’t know now. I used to keep count bu
t it reaches a point where you just can’t, because it’s your day job. Would you keep count of how many papers you delivered or braces you fitted?’ He looked at the ceiling. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s into triple figures though... It would have to be, I’ve been doing this a long time.’

  I’d never before been able to guess at his age. His features could be placed at twenty, thirty or even forty, in different lights.

  ‘How long?’

  He just smiled at me, and finished his whiskey. ‘I’ll see if I can get anything else out of the police, see if I can get an informer on the informer. What are you going to do?’

  I noticed that he asked this with a pointed look at the chiffon scarf.

  Without thinking, I swallowed and it hurt. ‘I don’t know. Work. Take my mind off it.’

  ‘If anything weird is going on, or... something happens, please call me.’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ I smiled. ‘Do you still have that basic info sheet on Gordon?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can I have it?’

  A knowing expression, and then he went to retrieve it from his bag. ‘Yeah.’

  It wasn’t said out loud but it might as well have been because we both knew what he was thinking, and it was that, once again, I wasn’t as good a liar as I thought I was.

  In a state of boredom and slight curiosity, I decided to look through the flat when Mark had left, thinking that I might find some clue as to... to what, I didn’t know. It might have been just any old clue as to him. I thought more and more about Darsi’s signs and symptoms of the psychopath and tried to work out if Mark was one. Or, more importantly, if I was.

  You’d be a natural at my type of work.

  There wasn’t much lying around. Just the few bits of food in the fridge, some dark men’s clothes in the wardrobe, TV, remote controls... But what I was really interested in was the locked chest of drawers in the living room. I guessed that Mark must have the keys because I couldn’t find them anywhere. I turned the place inside out looking for them until I eventually sat down on the floor in front of the drawers with a packet of biscuits and one of my daggers, furiously inserting it into the locks and attempting to destroy them with brute force.