Where There's Smoke (1997)

by Simon Beckett

  When the phone rang she thought it would be Clive. He had already called once, briefly, to say he would be away longer than he expected. His brother's funeral had been the day before, and she guessed he would call again soon, if only to say he still didn't know when he'd be back. She set her plate on a shelf, out of Dougal's reach, and went into the hall to answer the phone. "Hello?"

  "Kate?"

  It was a man's voice, familiar but not Clive’s, and she stiffened for the instant it took to place it. "It's Paul."

  She put her head against the wall. Her heart thumped with anticlimax. "Are you still there?" he asked.

  Kate straightened, wearily. "What do you want?"

  "Nothing. I just thought I'd phone, see how you are -"

  "I've got nothing to say to you." She was already lowering the phone.

  "No, wait, wait, wait, wait! Please!"

  It was that please that stopped her. She hesitated, then raised the phone again. "All right. I'm waiting."

  She heard him breathing. "Look, I'm—I know you don't want to talk to me, and I can't blame you. I just phoned because, well, because—oh, shit, look, I'm trying to say I'm sorry."

  Kate was too surprised to answer. Paul waited a moment, obviously hoping she would.

  "Kate? I said I'm sorry."

  There was none of the arrogance she'd come to expect in his voice. Even so, she half expected some catch. "You're sorry?"

  It was all she could think of to say.

  "Yeah, I know it's a bit late in the day, but…I just wanted to tell you."

  Curious, now, she tried to detect some hint that he was acting. But he spoke without any of his usual bombast. "What's brought this on?"

  "I've been doing a lot of thinking, lately, and…" He gave an uneasy laugh. "All right, it was getting arrested that did it. Arrested again, I should say."

  Kate tensed for the accusation. It didn't come.

  "It was…well, it was no joke." He sounded sober, still shaken by it. "The first time I got arrested, after I'd put the brick through your window, I was too pissed off to think about what was happening. I blamed you. You know what I'm like, it's always somebody else's fault, never mine."

  His tone was thinly jocular. He cleared his throat. "I was pissed off this time as well. But I was too drunk to get any sense out of, so they put me in a holding cell to sober up. I fell asleep, and when I woke up I felt like death. It stank of piss and puke, and I could hear all these drunks in the other cells, shouting and singing. Then I heard a couple of coppers coming down the corridor, talking about this drunk they'd picked up for a burglary, but it didn't dawn on me until they started unlocking my cell that it was me. Even then, I just thought, 'Fucking coppers, who do they think they are?' And then I sat up, and saw I'd pissed myself and been sick all down my front."

  He broke off. Kate heard him swallow.

  "Anyway, in the end they traced the cabby who'd taken me home. He remembered me because I'd argued with him and then puked in his cab." He gave a humourless laugh. "Good job, as it turned out. Once they'd spoken to him, they gave me my shoes and belt back and let me go. Trouble was, when I got outside I realised I hadn't taken my wallet when they'd arrested me, and I hadn't got a cent to get home with. So I stood there, covered in puke and piss, and I thought, 'What the fuck am I doing? I'm thirty-seven, I've lost my job, I've managed to piss off nearly everybody I know, and I've got to walk through the streets stinking like a wino.' And I just started crying. If I'd had any money on me, I'd have probably bought something and got pissed again, but all I could do was walk home. By the time I got back I was freezing and stone cold sober, and I thought, 'That's it,' and binned all the bottles in the house before I'd got time to think about it. Emptied them down the sink first so I couldn't change my mind. Then I got the phone book out and phoned Alcoholics Anonymous."

  There was a dramatic pause. Kate wondered if he had rehearsed the ending, expecting a fanfare. But she was immediately ashamed of her cynicism.

  "So how often have you been?" she asked, feeling obliged to say something.

  "More than half a dozen times now."

  If he resented the anticlimax, there was no sign of it. Kate felt churlish.

  "You go as often as you need, wherever there's a meeting," he went on. "I still need to go pretty often. There're twelve steps they say you've got to take. The main one is accepting that you've got a problem. That's supposed to be the hardest, that and apologising to people you've been a bastard to. Like you. But I've finally managed it. And I've not had a drink since."

  There was a faint note of pleading now, of wanting his accomplishment to be recognised. Kate relented. "It can't have been easy."

  "Hardest thing I've ever done." He sounded proud. "Next to this phone call, that is. But I wanted to tell you. I know I gave you a hard time. Not just recently. Before, as well."

  That wasn't just drink! you're still making excuses! She felt a flash of the old anger, but it quickly burned itself out.

  "It's a long time ago. Let's just forget about it."

  "No, I mean it. I know what you think about me, and you're right. I was a bastard to you. I wish I could blame it all on the booze, but I can't."

  She tried to find a suitable response. It wasn't so much that she didn't believe him. Just that none of it seemed to matter now.

  "Okay," she said, and then, because she knew he expected more, added, "I'm glad."

  She could almost hear him trying to gauge if she meant it. He seemed to decide that she did. "I came to the office this afternoon to tell you, but I couldn't bring myself to go in. I didn't think I'd be welcome, anyway. Not after last time." Kate made no comment to that.

  "I saw your friend outside," he added.

  The change of tack threw her. Lucy? she thought.

  "You know," Paul continued. "The guy you were with at the restaurant."

  Understanding came in a rush.

  "Outside?" she said, stupidly.

  "On the other side of the road. He was in a doorway. I thought he must be waiting for you."

  "He was there this afternoon?"

  "Yeah, about four o'clock, but -"

  "What was he doing?"

  "Nothing, he was just standing there. I couldn't place who he was at first. In fact, I thought he was a dosser to be honest. He looked like he should have been selling the Big Issue."

  Kate didn't laugh.

  "Yeah, well, he was in a bit of a state, anyway. I wondered about going over and apologising for…well, you know. But then he saw me, and gave me this look, and I thought, 'Perhaps not'. I'd got myself into enough trouble, and if he'd had a go nobody would've believed I hadn't started it."

  A faintly aggrieved note had entered his tone, but Kate barely noticed. "Did he do anything?"

  "Not while I was there, but like I say, I didn't stay. I just got as far as your office and turned back. He was still staring at me when I left. Look, are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

  The words wouldn't come. "The uh…the police are looking for him."

  Distantly, she heard Paul exclaim, asking why, and her own voice answering. There was a roaring in her ears. When it passed Paul was shouting at her.

  "Kate? Kate, you still there?"

  "…Yes."

  "So this guy's stalking you, then?"

  The effort to explain was too much. "Sort of."

  "Christ! I wish I'd known!"

  The familiar aggression was back. "Are you by yourself?"

  "Yes, but -"

  "I'll come over."

  It was a statement. Kate felt herself teeter on the edge of acceptance. "No, I don't think…"

  "I'll be there in about an hour," he said.

  "Paul…"

  "Don't worry. If I see him again you won't have any more trouble. Listen, have you eaten? I can stop off for -"

  "I said no!"

  There was a silence. "I only thought -" Paul began.

  "No," Kate checked herself. She tried to relax her tensed muscles. "I
know. But I don't think it's a good idea." Her anger was directed at herself for being tempted. She waited for him to argue.

  "No, I expect you're right," he said, after a pause. He gave a strained laugh. "I can't really blame you, I suppose. Still, the offer stands. If you need any help, just shout."

  The thank you lodged unspoken in Kate's throat.

  "Well, that's all, then," Paul said. He seemed to search for something else to say. "Look after yourself."

  She nodded, then remembered that he couldn't see her. "I will."

  The connection remained for a few seconds, then the line went dead. Kate put down the phone, telling herself she had no cause to feel bad. In her distraction she even forgot what he'd said about Ellis.

  She jumped at a sudden clatter from the lounge. She hurried through.

  Dougal leapt down from the shelf where she'd left her plate. It lay on the floor with the carrots and remains of the fish scattered around it. The baked potato sat on the carpet like a dead tortoise.

  Kate went to fetch a cloth.

  CHAPTER 22

  The weak sun of the previous afternoon was stronger next morning. It gave a hard, clear-edged quality to the dead verges and the bare black branches in the gardens. The streets had the clarity of old photographs, almost monochromatic in their brightness.

  Kate watched them pass outside the taxi window. It dropped her outside the tube station, and the sun touched her briefly as she stepped out of the cab. Then she was in the shadow of the Underground, where the crispness of the day was lost in the stale, subterranean air.

  She was later than usual. The early-morning commuters had already gone, and the station looked abandoned in the post-rush hour quiet. The dying rumble of a recently departed train was fading down the tunnel as Kate emerged onto the empty platform. She sat down on one of the plastic seats fixed to the wall.

  Her eyes felt gritty with tiredness. She had hardly slept the night before. She had tried calling Collins but he wasn't in, so she'd left a message for him to ring her.

  After that she hadn't been able to settle. She had gone downstairs to check the locks on the door, and then turned off the lounge light and peered through the window. The dark street outside was empty and full of shadows. She had waited for one of them to move until her eyes hurt. When she had gone to bed, she had lain awake and listened to every creak of the cooling house.

  The electronic sign said a train was due in two minutes.

  Kate yawned. From the entrance to the platform came the echoing scuff of a shoe. Still yawning, she put her hand to her mouth and glanced around, expecting someone to appear. No one did.

  She was about to look away when she heard the scuff again. It was softer this time, but nearer. She waited, watching the opening in the wall.

  The noise came a third time. Now it was from the other side. Kate turned. There was a second entrance on her right, this one only ten feet away. A faint squeak, like a rubber sole on concrete, came from it. But still no one appeared.

  Kate looked quickly around. The platform was silent and deserted. She stood up, gripping her bag in front of her.

  Slowly, she began to edge as quietly as she could away from the second entrance. She tried to visualise the layout on the other side, how far away the steps were. The scuff sounded again. She stopped.

  She didn't know which of the openings it had come from.

  Kate didn't move. There was no further sound. She waited, then began to creep along the platform once more. The first entrance was twenty feet away, then fifteen, then five. She halted at the corner, listening.

  A faint, rustling whisper from the other side, like blown litter. Or breathing.

  I'm imagining it. There's nothing there.

  The opening in the wall lay in front of her. Through it she could glimpse the bottom of the steps, disappearing upwards.

  Just run. She tensed for the effort, and then there was a noise behind her, and she remembered the other entrance.

  She spun around, the scream choking off as the windows of the train flashed past, elongated squares of light framing faces and bodies. Kate sank back against the wall as it slowed and stopped. She looked back down the platform. It was empty.

  The train doors hissed open, and people were stepping off. Clutching her bag, Kate ran to the nearest carriage and jumped in. She watched, but no one else got on.

  By the time she reached the agency, Kate had almost convinced herself that it had been nothing. A wind from the tunnel, a piece of paper, and her imagination. She actually smiled at the thought of leaping out to confront an empty crisp packet. Then she remembered Ellis standing in the doorway the day before, and her smile faded.

  Even so, it was a good day. An importer of South American artefacts phoned out of the blue and commissioned her to handle the publicity for an exhibition of Mexican jewellery.

  She had been recommended by a friend, the man told her with a faint American accent. He had been out of the country for the past month and would be out again the following week, so he didn't have time to waste sifting through PR agencies.

  Was she interested? She was.

  The acquisition of a new client lifted her some way back towards the optimism she had begun to feel the previous day. It felt good to speak to someone without worrying about what they had seen or heard. She was eagerly reading the material the importer had faxed her when Caroline buzzed through and said that Detective Inspector Collins was downstairs.

  Kate told her to send him up. She wondered why he was calling in person. They've caught him, flashed through her mind. She felt a spark of hope. But when Collins walked in she could see that they hadn't.

  The policeman looked tired. His face was seamed and grey.

  The chair creaked as he lowered himself into it. The sergeant gave her a smile as he took the other chair, but his heart didn't seem in it. A smell of cigarette smoke came into the room with them.

  "Did you get my messages?" Kate asked.

  Collins nodded. He was about to say something, but Kate couldn't wait any longer to tell him her news.

  "He was here," she exclaimed. "Yesterday afternoon."

  Collins came alert. "Ellis? You've seen him?"

  "No, but someone else did. I only found out last night, that's why I called you."

  "What time was this?"

  "I think it was about four o'clock. Ellis was standing in a doorway across the road."

  "Who saw him?"

  "Paul Sutherland. He's the one who was picked up for the break-in. He phoned last night and…What's the matter?"

  They were both staring at her. The sergeant had frozen in the act of writing his notes. Kate saw him glance at the Inspector.

  "What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

  The sergeant dropped his gaze back to his notebook. Collins spoke gently.

  "Paul Sutherland was killed last night."

  Kate felt herself blown back to another time, being told by the same two men of another death.

  "Someone set fire to his house," the Inspector said. "They poured petrol through the letter-box and then lobbed petrol bombs through the upstairs and downstairs windows."

  "Someone," she echoed. She could hear Paul's voice, quite clearly. He saw me and gave me this look…He was still staring at me when I left.

  Collins rubbed his eyes. His skin wrinkled up like old leather where his fingers pushed it. "We haven't got a definite ID. But some neighbours heard the glass going and saw a man standing in the street outside the house. They called the fire brigade and then went out, and the man was still standing there. They say he was just watching. He only ran off when they shouted. They didn't give a very good description but…"

  Kate closed her eyes. She saw flames, smelt petrol.

  "You say you spoke to Paul Sutherland," Collins said. "Can you remember what time?"

  "I don't know…not late. Eight o'clock, perhaps."

  "This was just after three. But I only found out an hour ago myself. Otherwise I'd have let you
know sooner. There's supposed to be communication but you wouldn't know it, half the time." He sounded apologetic.

  Her stomach lurched as a thought struck her. "Oh, God, you want me to identify him, don't you?"

  Collins was startled. "Good God, no! No, that's already been done. I just came to tell you, that's all." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I don't want to upset you needlessly but…well, it might not be a bad thing if there's someone you can stay with. Just for a few days." He seemed to find it difficult to look at her.

  "You think he was planning to do something to me, don't you?" she said. "Then he saw Paul and followed him home and set fire to his house instead."

  "Not necessarily. I just think you might be better off somewhere else, that's all. But we'll still keep a close watch on your flat and here, regardless." He gave an unconvincing smile as he stood up. "Don't worry. We won't let him get to you."

  Caroline and Josefina were clearly surprised when she closed the agency soon after the two policemen had left, but Kate didn't offer any explanation. She took a taxi home rather than face the Underground. The streets that had been sunny that morning were now grey with the coming dusk. They hit a traffic jam, and Kate watched the meter ticking away as they sat among the fumes and car horns, and wondered if she had enough cash for the fare. Part of her hoped she hadn't.

  Her conversation with Paul played in a loop in her head. Every nuance, every inflection sounded with a new and callous finality. She thought about the last thing he had said to her. Look after yourself. She hadn't bothered to tell him to do the same. Be careful, she could have said. He's dangerous. He burns people. Look after yourself. But she hadn't.

  It was growing dark when the taxi turned onto her road. She paid the driver, almost disappointed to find she had enough money to spare herself that humiliation. The cab pulled away, leaving her alone on the pavement.