Morpho

by Philip Palmer

  Liam was shocked. ‘Who the hell told you about that?’

  Hayley hid a smile. ‘No one. I guessed.’

  Liam’s face flickered: she’d well and truly got him there.

  ‘My brothers insisted,’ Liam admitted, ruefully. ‘Rite of passage. I couldn’t let them down, now, could I?’

  ‘So you lied to my sister, then committed adultery a week before her wedding?’

  ‘Two weeks before, as it happens, counting this delay which is entirely your fault, and I didn’t commit adultery. I just – watched.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Yeah but she had strippers at her hen night!’ Liam protested.

  ‘She did not!’

  ‘She did. I got a full report on that one.’

  Hayley thought back. She’d been there, she knew that much. The rest was a blank.

  ‘That’s different, when girls do it it’s a laugh.’

  ‘I didn’t commit adultery,’ said Liam softly. ‘I know what you think about me. It’s mostly true. I’m one hard bastard and I’ve an eye for the ladies. But those days are done.’

  ‘You’re a changed man, are you?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Doesn’t happen. No one changes. Once a bastard, always a bastard.’

  ‘No one changes. You really believe that?’

  Hayley thought about it. ‘No.’

  ‘So what you really think is, you might be able to change, but not me?’

  ‘I don’t need to change.’

  ‘You might consider getting off the heroin and not being such a foul-mouthed bitch, maybe.’

  ‘Who said I’m a foul-mouthed bitch?’

  ‘Well I just did.’

  ‘Well –’ Hayley silently mimed the lyrics of the filthiest rap song she knew. Liam could lip-read well enough; he grinned.

  Hayley finished her plate and mopped the sauce up with some white bread. She still felt hungry.

  She realised she was happy. Liam was smiling at her indulgently.

  ‘Take me home, please?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Is it –?’

  ‘I had the place fumigated.’

  ‘Oh you kiss-arse! Is there no limit to what you’ll do to make my sister happy?’ Hayley goaded.

  ‘Not really. And I didn’t do it for her, I did it for you, you daft bitch.’

  Hayley had no comeback.

  It was three blocks from the pub to the target’s house.

  Earlier that day, at 7.05pm, DOH surveillance teams had followed him from the house to his local, using long lenses and a mobile phone hack. The photos had been sent to Control to confirm the identity of the target. A search team had broken in and fingerprinted the kitchen utensils to double check that this individual definitely was Tony Riley, lorry driver.

  You can’t be too careful, with wetwork.

  At 7.35pm, an undercover agent wandered into the pub for a quick half of pale ale and had lingered to monitor the target’s consumption. The agent had observed that the target was a solitary drinker, and a heavy one, consuming three pints of Doombar in the hour the agent was there.

  Web intercepts had shown that the target was a late night obsessive blogger with a tendency to flame his enemies whilst drunk. So two days previously, at Marlowe’s instructions, a cut out had been created to divert all his internet traffic to a site in Germany, where a team of highly paid geeks were masquerading as conspiracy theorising trolls.

  All the evidence suggested that the target was a strange man. He was an IT specialist who had been sacked from a pretty good job for antisocial behaviour, and had taken to HGV driving as a second career choice. He drove lorries of cigarettes across Europe, he never socialised with the other drivers, he was reliable to a fault but not well liked.

  Hence, he wouldn’t be missed.

  A team of ten wetworkers had been assigned to the job, with full logistical support. Money was never an object for the DOH.

  The oldest assassin was twenty-nine, but all of the team could pass for teenagers. They were all born into supreme wealth and none of them needed to work for a living. All the men were educated at Eton, the two women hailed from Cheltenham Ladies College.

  Tonight they were pretending to be Yardie-affiliated gangstas, and were skilfully made up to look their parts, like a gang of psychopathic Black and White Minstrels.

  They lay in wait on the pavement between the pub and the target’s home, in a blatant druggie huddle, swapping ‘innits’ and ‘bloods’, and ‘feeling clappin’ man’ and ‘dreds’ and ‘fucking feds’ and ‘merks’, in a preposterous medley of memorised rap lyrics, until the target emerged from the pub and walked towards them. Then they moved in.

  ‘Give us your raasclat phone, man, innit!’ cried one young Etonian.

  ‘Huh? What?’

  They kicked the target to death. It took a while. Their boots had steel plates in the toes and strengthened heels. The first kick shattered the target’s larynx, to prevent him screaming. The kickers were shielded from view by two semicircles of loitering youths; from a distance, it looked as if drugs were being bought or sold. When he was confirmed as dead they took his phone. They took his wallet too, though there wasn’t much cash in it. The cards would be melted and the leather would be burned, later.

  The lorry driver died not knowing why he had to die. He was a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist but even he wasn’t that paranoid.

  Careless words. Words he should never have said:

  ‘A mist of blood, dancing, in front of her – her body, then she opened her mouth and sucked and the blood flew up into the air and she drank it in. Drank her own blood.’

  Witnesses later reported that a gang of black youths wearing hoodies had fled the scene where a local man was beaten to death for his mobile phone.

  Marlowe was pleased. Two Actions resolved. The body of Jane Carter retrieved. And Tony Riley, TWP. All that was left was for them to dispose of the purple-haired girl from the mortuary.

  And after that –

  Marlowe had loved the old days. He hated these new days, and he hated Drummond and his kind. He hated the guns and the mobile phones and the written reports and the performance appraisals that even he – he! – had to endure these days. But he had now been assured that, within the next few weeks, Rothbury would rejoin the fray. Rejuvenated, re-energised, inspirational.

  My Lord, I shall serve thee to the end of my days.

  Rothbury was a true knight, one of the few to live up to the ideals of their Sacred Order, and Marlowe had once been his squire.

  Together they had conquered Jerusalem. And Marlowe’s hope was that – metaphorically – they would now be able to do so again.

  Hayley stared at her mother as she approached the Hebden Bridge Town Hall, looking like a multi-coloured dirigible.

  Acting upon very specific orders from her younger sister, Hayley forced a big smile on to her face.

  ‘Wake up, Mam. Wake up.’

  Mam stirred. She snored. She shifted her bulk on the sofa. Hayley didn’t want to be late for school. But she didn’t want to leave her mother like this.

  ‘Are you okay, Mam?’

  A snore, a grunt. Mam was always okay. She had amazing survival instincts.

  Hayley went to the bathroom with a washing up bowl and filled it and stirred in some soap, then she came back and mopped her mother’s face with a flannel. She’d clearly fallen down drunk somewhere, there were scabs on her face and her hands. Hayley cleaned them and disinfected them with a wipe then dried them carefully with a hand towel. When she was finished she gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. Her little message to say, ‘I’m always here for you.’

  But Mam didn’t feel it and if she’d felt it she wouldn’t have remembered it. And that afternoon when Hayley came home from school Mam was baking cakes and scones with Cheyney and the two of them were chattering and gossiping and it was as if Hayley didn’t exist.

  That was then. This was now.

 
Still with the big smile etched on her face, Hayley strode towards her mother like a heat-seeking missile. She held her tongue till she was too close to be ignored, then launched into it:

  ‘All right, Mam!’ Hayley almost shouted. ‘How are you then? Wonderful weather for a wedding, isn’t it, and oh that dress is lovely!’ Over-rehearsed hardly covered it, but at least no one could say she wasn’t saying the right things.

  Mam did a double take. Looked her daughter up and down.

  Stared at her tunnel piercings and her flat breasts, like a sergeant major doing a kit inspection on Dennis the Menace. Her disdain was almost palpable.

  Are you really so ashamed of me, Mam? Am I really such a terrible daughter?

  They were standing outside the entrance of the Town Hall, amid a swarm of wedding goers all in their best glad rags. The weather was in fact lovely and above her richly coloured dress Mam was wearing a big white hat tinted with yellow nicotine stains.

  ‘Smashing, eh!’ Hayley added, hoping that today of all days things would be different between her and her Mam.

  They weren’t.

  Mam followed up her startled double take with a weary glance. A fuck off and die before you disappoint us yet again look.

  ‘Try not to bugger up your sister’s wedding, eh? Or is that too much trouble?’ she said eventually, then sucked at her fag. Despite her formidable bulk, and her shockingly unhealthy lifestyle, Mam exuded energy and life force. She was like three people rolled into one. That’s why everyone loved her.

  ‘Course I won’t. I mean it’s not.’ Hayley felt herself babbling.

  Mam blew smoke rings in the air: a lost art. The three page boys in their cute three piece suits looked goggle-eyed at that.

  Mam adopted a stage whisper, audible streets away: ‘I hear you OD’d. I hear Liam found you in a pile of your own puke and shit, like.’

  ‘That’s not exactly what happened.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Jesus! Heroin! A child of mine, on heroin! The shame of it. If your father was alive today, well, let’s spare him the shame.’

  Hayley’s dad had scarpered when Hayley was two years old; no one knew if he was alive or dead.

  ‘Yeah but you’re a bloody prescription pill addict and alcoholic, and my granddad had a nervous breakdown because of you,’ Hayley wanted to tell her mother. Because all of those things were true. But she didn’t say any of it.

  ‘Just don’t fuck up or have a seizure or anything, oh, and what’s wrong with your legs? Why are you wearing curtains?’ Mam said, in shocked tones, and those were the last words she spoke to Hayley all day long.

  ‘I, Cheyney Patricia Bradley, take you to be my lawfully wedded husband. Before these witnesses I vow to love you.’

  The service was being held in the Council Chamber. The registrar sat at a magohany desk, her back to the guests. The bride stood proudly, Uncle Mack on one side of her, Liam and ex-getaway driver Best Man on the other.

  Mam stole the show, with her multi-coloured billowing dress and her ridiculous hat and her girth. She had taken upon herself the right to give her daughter away, in the absence of Cheyney and Hayley’s dad.

  ‘And now it’s your turn,’ said Cheyney to Liam. ‘Come on love, can’t back out now.’

  Liam grinned. He was bursting out of his grey morning suit, an unexpected silver earring in his left ear. He kissed the bride, ahead of schedule, gave her a little pat on her arse, and she kissed him back.

  Cheyney’s dress hugged her where it mattered before pooling into a lake of red fabric below the bustle. She was sexy beyond belief, in Hayley’s humble opinion. The bridesmaids were gowned fussily in rose-pink. All three of them were slim and gorgeous and moved in easy unison; they could have been the backing singers to Cheyney’s Shakira.

  Liam gave it his all: ‘I, Liam Maloney, take thee Cheyney Patricia Bradley, to be my awfully –’ Pause, grin, the lads loved that: ‘lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold –’

  ‘Read the card, Liam.’

  Liam read the card: ‘Before these witnesses I vow to love you –’

  Hayley kept staring at her Mam.

  ‘And I really do love you, petal. You are the light of my life,’ Liam said, ad-libbing.

  Everyone laughed at that, except Hayley.

  Not the hospital for stupid children, again.

  You really are a waste of space, Hayley.

  Hello, Mam, can you see me? I’m standing right in front of you? I’m here, it’s my sister’s wedding, I’M HERE!

  ‘Hayley, you coming?’

  It was all over, apparently.

  ‘Yeah yeah yeah.’

  Hayley was the last to leave the Council Chamber. The sunshine that had followed the morning’s rain poured through the windows. Dust motes hovered.

  Then it was canapés and Walker’s crisps on the Terrace, overlooking the rushing waters of the Rochdale Canal.

  ‘Great wedding, eh ?’ someone asked her.

  And yeah, it was. Except, Hayley had a stone where her heart should be.

  A waiter was standing at her shoulder. She glanced at him. Then glanced again. He was cute. Young, muscular, good looking if you liked that sort of thing, which Hayley (shamefacedly) did. His hair was scrunchied into a ponytail. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and his arms were decorated with tattoos – Frank Sinatra on one arm, Grace Kelly on the other. Adorably retro.

  Hayley raised her head when he filled her wine glass, so he could spot the blue butterfly tat under her chin. The one weird thing about her that most people didn’t tend to notice. He did notice. He smiled.

  ‘Like the hair,’ he murmured, flirtily.

  She’d taken the lime-green highlights out of her purple hedge, and she had to admit it worked a hell of a lot better that way.

  ‘Hmm, yeah, right,’ she said ungraciously.

  ‘Are you here for the bride or the groom?’

  Oh my God, are you chatting me up? Sorry, pal, but do you not know who I am? That I am a pariah in this community?

  ‘Um.’

  ‘The bride?’

  ‘Um.’ He took that as a yes.

  ‘She’s my sister,’ Hayley added. She was staring at his face, which was lovely.

  He reached over and stroked her hair.

  ‘Sorry, you had a –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thing. Just there.’

  ‘Cobweb?’

  ‘Bit of fluff. Maybe some cherry blossom. ‘

  He opened his hand. There was a cherry blossom cupped in his palm. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’ He threw it in the air; the air caught it. The pink cherry blossom hovered for a brief instant on invisible currents of air, then was gone.

  The waiter moved on. She followed him with her eyes.

  Well why shouldn’t I?

  She checked out again the tat on his right arm, the Grace Kelly.

  No, she was wrong about that, it was a woman with blonde hair holding a guitar. Who though? She peered. Dirty Jenny? Orianthi? It was definitely a blonde rock guitarist NOT a blonde screen siren in a white dress. Odd, thought Hayley, how could she have been mistaken about that?

  ‘Look at her!’ Cheyney was at her shoulder, still in her scarlet hussy dress.

  ‘At her age – she’s amazing!’ Cheyney said cheerfully. Hayley rubbed her front teeth over her tongue, holding back the sark.

  Cheyney was looking at Mam. Their mother had taken off her hat, and also her shawl, revealing her beefy upper arms. She was talking animatedly to a pal of Liam’s, Hayley didn’t know his name, but he was twenty-five at most and looked like the guy who played Thor.

  And he was laughing at her jokes! Lapping her up, in fact. Mam was forty-five years old, three stone away from being morbidly obese, pickled in booze, hooked on prescription pills, addicted to life on benefits; but she still had it.

  Looking at her, Hayley wanted to weep.

  ‘Bless her,’ said Cheyney, who had a heart o
f gold.

  ‘She’s on something.’

  ‘She’s just happy.’

  Mam leaned across the table, tilting her head towards Liam’s gym-ripped pal. Gym-Boy took the hint, and leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. Then less gently, on the lips. As they kissed, Mam cupped Thor’s head with four strong fingers and a thumb hardened by years of operating the remote control. She wasn’t, it seemed, going to let him go.

  Hayley was stunned. Gross hardly covered this nightmare scenario.

  ‘You look, um, great, Chey,’ Hayley said, weakly.

  Cheyney dragged her stare away.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Love you,’ Hayley said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Love you.’

  Cheyney laughed at that. ‘Fuck me. You’ll be crying in chick flicks next.’

  ‘I don’t fucking think so.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’ And Cheney beamed, radiating joy. ‘Try and score, love, eh? Lots of Liam’s mates around. They’re not fussy, I mean, look at Mam. Even a dog like you should manage a shag by the end of the evening.’

  Cheyney bustled off.

  Hayley slowly smiled.

  Hayley drank six glasses of free Cava then cracked and went to the pay bar and bought a pint of Tetley’s.

  Liam joined her. Grinning like he owned the place, rather than just renting it by the hour.

  ‘All right, Hayley, love. How are you doing?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Ah yes. You saw me naked in a mountain of my own shit and vomit. But let’s pretend that never happened, hmm?

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’

  She thought about that, too much. ‘Yeah, s’pose.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘Fuck off, Liam.’

  He grinned. ‘You’re a charmer, you really are.’

  She hesitated. She was not a gracious person by nature, she prided herself on that. But even for her, there were limits.

  ‘Thank you for, you know. All that you did,’ she said shyly.

  It had been without doubt the most harrowing experience of her entire life. But she was successfully managing not to think about any of it. Denial, it seemed, wasn’t always such a bad thing.