The Rule

by David Jackson

  To Daniel’s mind, this was not breaking The Rule. This was Adam-9, and Adam-9 was allowed to fight back. Daniel had never actually seen him kill anyone in the programmes or comics, but he was quite sure that people must have died. When Adam made that missile reverse back into the rogue space station, the people on board must have been blown to bits. How could they have escaped alive?

  Yes, it was okay for Adam-9. The Rule wasn’t meant for him.

  3

  Hannah didn’t even bother to take her coat off. She went straight to the kitchen, where she dropped her bag in the middle of the floor. She took a glass from the shelf and a bottle of red wine at random from the rack next to it. She poured until the glass was full, then gulped most of it down. She didn’t savour it; she just wanted the hit of alcohol.

  She heard a noise behind her, and turned to see Ben wandering into the room. As always, he looked so chilled, so at one with his universe, his universe being largely confined to this address. They’d built a studio in the garden, where he spent most of each day creating sculptures and listening to weird electronic music. He even took his breaks out there, drinking herbal tea or contorting his body into impossible shapes on his yoga mat. He was the total opposite of the men with whom Hannah shared her working day. She believed that was why their relationship worked so well. She couldn’t have stood being married to a bloody copper.

  He smiled with his whole face and issued the brightest ‘Hey’, but his eyes were on the wine glass and it annoyed her, because why shouldn’t she have a drink after work like lots of other people?

  Ben stooped to pick up her bag, then tossed his head to clear the hair from his eyes as he placed the bag gingerly on the breakfast bar. Hannah had always liked the way he kept his hair long, but even that was starting to irritate her. Everything irritated her.

  ‘Tough day?’ he asked, and she took it as a slight because the implication was clearly that she was resorting to alcohol as a solution to her problems, which may have been true but that wasn’t the point.

  ‘Par for the course,’ she said. She began to recharge her glass, and was convinced that Ben’s eyes widened at the rising wine level.

  ‘Need a hug?’ he asked.

  ‘What I need is work.’

  He smiled again. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Some Botox, perhaps. And okay, maybe a slight boob job.’

  She kicked out at him half-heartedly and he bounced out of range.

  ‘They don’t trust me,’ she said.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘The top brass. My own boss. They think I’ve lost it. They don’t trust me to do a proper job.’

  ‘Maybe they’re just protecting you.’

  ‘I don’t need protecting. Why would they even think that?’

  Ben shrugged his shoulders. ‘You didn’t take much time off. Maybe they think you could do without the stress.’

  Hannah swigged more wine. ‘I can handle stress. It goes with the badge. It’s not about that. It’s because they think I’m a fuck-up.’

  ‘No they don’t.’

  ‘They do. The Suzy Carling thing was just the cherry on a whole cake of fuck-up.’

  ‘That wasn’t your fault. You know that.’

  Which was another thing she loved about Ben. They’d had this conversation probably a thousand times before, and each time he could have said something like ‘Oh, Christ, not this again’, but he never did. Although sometimes – right now, for example – a part of her wished he would do precisely that so she could have a damn good argument.

  ‘I know what they put in the official reports, but the force doesn’t admit to mistakes unless it absolutely has to. What they write about me and what they think about me privately are two different things.’

  Ben pointed to the wine bottle. ‘Are you planning to share that?’

  She took down another glass. As she filled it she wondered if he’d asked for it just to prevent her drinking it all.

  Ben sipped the wine and studied her over the rim of his glass.

  ‘What makes you think they’re so against you?’

  ‘Don’t ask that like you’re a psychologist talking to a paranoid schizophrenic. I’m not imagining things. I look at the cases I used to get and I look at the cases I get now and they’re different. I used to work murders. I was right at the forefront on those investigations. Everyone had me pegged for shooting up the ranks.’ She waved her glass at him, and some of the wine sloshed over the sides. ‘You know what they gave me today? A missing husband.’

  ‘Well, that sounds pretty important to me. I mean, I’d like to think that if I went missing—’

  ‘He disappeared two years ago. Two fucking years. And he’d emptied out his savings account before he went, so it looked like he knew exactly what he was doing. But now the family are kicking up a fuss about it again, and my bosses want to show that they’re taking it seriously. So who gets the job? Muggins here.’

  ‘I suppose somebody has to do it.’

  There he goes again, she thought. The voice of reason.

  ‘Yes, of course somebody has to do it, and if it was just the once, I wouldn’t be complaining. But when it happens again and again – when every shitty meaningless job lands on my desk – then it starts to get pretty tedious pretty damn quickly.’

  ‘Have you spoken to anyone about it? Have you talked it over with your boss?’

  ‘Yes, I had a chat with Ray Devereux.’

  ‘And? What did he say?’

  ‘He said . . . he said I should have a good long think about whether I’m on the right career path.’

  The shock was evident on Ben’s face. ‘What kind of support is that? Shouldn’t he be sticking up for you? Jesus! And this is all because some stupid woman tried to outrun a train? That’s not fair.’

  That’s more like it, she thought. A bit of outrage against the bastards I have to deal with. Mild outrage, admittedly, but for Ben it’s the equivalent of a volcanic eruption.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s not just that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Confession time. She’d kept this to herself out of embarrassment, but right now she needed support.

  ‘There are other things. Mistakes.’

  ‘What mistakes?’

  ‘Little things. Mostly.’

  ‘Mostly?’

  ‘There was a lad. He came in for a voluntary interview last week. He had information related to a stabbing we were investigating. I led the interview. Only . . . I forgot to caution him prior to questioning.’

  She saw how Ben’s face dropped. He knew enough about police work to realise how serious this was. It could lead to the collapse of a case in court.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Somebody noticed there was no caution on the recording of the interview, which left the lad’s statements open to legal challenge. A stink was raised. I was asked for an explanation.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘The only thing I could say. I remained adamant that I had issued a caution.’

  ‘Did they believe you?’

  ‘Only when Marcel Lang came to my aid and said he’d heard me do it. He said he was late pressing the button on the recorder.’

  ‘He lied?’

  Hannah nodded. This was only one of many things over the years for which she had Marcel to thank.

  Ben sighed. ‘Come and sit down. Take your coat off.’

  They eased themselves onto the stools at the breakfast bar. Hannah could hear the whirring of the fans in the oven and the extractor unit. A smell of goulash wafted across to her, but she had no appetite for it, even though Ben was a great cook. His health regime might consist of drinking beverages that smelled like piss, and tying his ankles together behind his neck, but so far he had resisted crossing the Styx into the darkness that was vegetarianism.

  He took her hand. ‘Hannah,’ he said, ‘do you think maybe you do need to take some more time off ? It’s not like you to make mistakes like th
at.’

  She was silent for a moment, but it was only to convince her husband that she was giving it serious consideration.

  ‘I can’t sit at home doing nothing. I tried that and it killed me. I need to work.’

  ‘Then . . . then maybe your boss was right. Maybe you need to think about making a change.’

  She yanked her hand away from his. ‘I don’t want a fucking change. I’m good at what I do. What I need is for people to start believing in me.’

  She meant her police superiors, but realised it came across as being directed at Ben. He looked hurt.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘It’s okay. You’ve had a tough time. We both have.’ He looked at the oven and got to his feet. ‘That goulash is nearly ready. I’ll put some rice on.’

  She didn’t stop him. He also needed to be busy. That was how they lived their lives now: keeping themselves distracted. When she wanted to talk about it, she wasn’t sure he did; and she was sure there were also times that he was afraid of bringing up the topic.

  It shouldn’t be like this, she thought. We can’t keep pretending that things are back to normal. They’re not, and never will be.

  She watched as he put a pan of water on the hob and turned on the gas. He remained staring at the pan, his back to her, as though his gaze was essential to the boiling process.

  ‘I see her,’ Hannah said.

  Ben turned his head slightly. ‘What?’

  More confessions, she thought. Seems to be the night for them.

  ‘Tilly. I see her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She keeps appearing to me, and at the strangest times. I’m usually not even thinking about her when it happens. She’ll just walk right out in front of me, or I’ll see her in the distance. But when I try going to her, she disappears.’

  Ben said nothing. Just stood and waited to hear more. Hannah looked at the light bouncing off the surface of her wine as she remembered.

  ‘It happened at Suzy Carling’s house. She came out of the kitchen while we were talking. She was in her school uniform. She looked . . . proud. And then afterwards – after the train – I saw her again. She was far away, looking back at me as if she wanted me to follow.’

  ‘You . . . you see her a lot, then?’

  ‘Not a lot. But enough. And I know she’s not real. It’s just my mind playing tricks. But she’s so clear. So solid. She’s there, Ben.’

  His response of silence demanded her attention, and she looked up to see that his eyes were glistening.

  ‘Oh, what’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  He looked so helpless, so at a loss. ‘I don’t see her. I never see her. I look, but she’s never there. Every time I walk into a room, I think she’ll be there. Every time I hear a sound in the house, I expect it to be her. And it’s not. It never is. I don’t see her, Hannah. I don’t see her.’

  She went to him then. Held him tightly as his tears flowed.

  Sometimes she forgot that she wasn’t the only one who needed consoling.

  And sometimes she felt that the thing most tightly binding them together was their shared pain.

  4

  For Scott, working with his son was always beautiful.

  Daniel liked to pretend. He would watch his dad working on a car, and then he would mimic the actions on his own invisible vehicle, his eyes constantly roving to his father to check he was doing it right. He would even hitch up his trousers when his father did, or rub his hands at the same time, or sigh and tut in concert.

  In those moments, Scott could easily forget that his son was nearly twenty-three.

  He was fully aware that his boss didn’t approve of Daniel being in the garage. ‘It’s dangerous,’ Gavin would say. ‘He could get hurt, or damage something.’ But Gavin wasn’t working today, and Scott had jumped at the opportunity to spend time alone with his son. No offence to Gemma, but the father–son bond was like epoxy resin: it worked best without a third ingredient.

  Right now, Scott was labouring beneath a jacked-up 4x4. He looked across at Daniel, lying flat on his back and staring up at his own imaginary car while making twisting motions with his imaginary spanner. The simplicity and purity of it brought a lump to Scott’s throat.

  ‘Daniel,’ he called. ‘I’m nearly done here. Could you bring over the wheels for this Audi, please?’

  Scott came out from beneath the car and stood up, stretching his aching back.

  ‘Here you go, Dad.’

  Scott turned. He had expected Daniel to roll one of the wheels over to him. Instead, Daniel was carrying all four of them, two tucked under each arm. Wheels, not just tyres. He might as well have been carrying swimming floats.

  ‘Er, thanks, Daniel. Just put them down there for me, will you?’

  Daniel propped his load up against a metal post. ‘What else can I do?’

  Scott scanned the interior of the garage for a task that would be useful but not hazardous.

  ‘You see that filing cabinet over there? We’ve made room for it in the office. Would you mind taking all the stuff out of the drawers? Then you can help me shift it.’

  Daniel nodded vigorously, then marched like a soldier towards the cabinet, his arms swinging wildly at his sides.

  Scott smiled and focused his attention on the first of the wheels. Seconds later, he heard a grunt from behind. He turned and saw that, rather than emptying the drawers, Daniel had simply wrapped his arms around the full cabinet, picked the whole thing up, and was now carrying it into the office.

  Scott shook his head in amazement. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘Where the hell did he get those genes from?’

  The movie was just okay. Scott had sat through enough films like this one to know what to expect. There were a few one-liners aimed at a more adult audience, and there was some amusing slapstick, but the main enjoyment for Scott came from watching the reaction of his son. Daniel was transfixed from beginning to end. He even seemed unaware of his hand mechanically grabbing popcorn and transferring it to his mouth. For a couple of hours, the outside world ceased to exist for Daniel, and even when the closing music thundered in, he insisted on remaining in his seat until the credits had finished rolling.

  Scott wanted to hang on to that enjoyment as he drove home. He listened to Daniel jabbering endlessly about the film and tried to absorb some of his exhilaration.

  But then he pulled his old Ford into the car park, and the tower block loomed as if to impress upon him that this was, and always would be, the end of the line. His heart sank. The short-lived fantasy was over.

  The pair entered the building. Scott wrinkled his nose at the pungent odour of weed, but Daniel didn’t seem to notice. He had stopped talking about the film and was now on to television soap operas.

  ‘You mind if we take the lift?’ Scott said.

  ‘I don’t like lifts. I like the stairs.’

  ‘I know, but I really don’t feel like walking all that way up. Come on, Daniel, keep me company.’

  Daniel looked up the staircase and then back at the lift doors. ‘Oh, okay.’

  Scott allowed Daniel the disproportionate pleasure of summoning the lift. While they waited, Scott reflected on how quiet the building was. It could be like that sometimes, the vast structure feeling almost devoid of life.

  The lift doors shuddered open. Daniel stepped in with some trepidation and stared at the metal walls enclosing him. He let out a slight murmur of discomfort when the lift jerked into life again and began dragging them upwards.

  ‘It’s all right, Daniel. It’s perfectly safe.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel very safe.’

  ‘I know, but it is. Trust me.’

  ‘I always trust you, Dad.’

  The lift slowed and came to a stop.

  ‘This is number eight,’ Daniel said. ‘We don’t live on this floor.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  The doors opened. Facing them was a man who made
Scott tense immediately. The man appeared to be in his twenties. Stocky, with coarse stubble and thick eyebrows. He wore a black leather jacket and skinny jeans, and over one shoulder was slung a khaki backpack – much older and heavier looking than the one Scott was carrying. He was chewing gum, and had a cigarette tucked behind one ear. There was something in the way he glared at Scott that suggested he wasn’t a person to be trifled with.

  The man came forward. Scott and Daniel parted to let him through, Daniel flattening his bulk against the side wall. As the man turned and faced forward, Scott asked him what floor he wanted.

  ‘Ground,’ the man said.

  Scott really wished he could grant the request, but he knew the lift would insist on completing its assigned journey first.

  ‘Er, we’re going up.’

  The man narrowed his eyes at Scott, as if to discern whether his command was being challenged. As the doors closed and the lift groaned with its increased load, the man said, ‘Right. I’ll go up, and then I’ll go down again.’ He made it sound as though Scott was entirely to blame for this elongation of his journey.

  ‘You must have pressed the wrong button,’ Daniel said.

  Shit, Scott thought.

  ‘What?’ the man said. The single word dripped with a menace that went undetected by Daniel.

  ‘You must have pressed the up button. The lift wouldn’t have stopped if you’d pressed the down button.’

  ‘I pressed the down button.’ It was said with finality, but Daniel was determined.

  ‘Then the lift must be broken.’ He turned to his father. ‘Dad, you said this lift was safe.’

  ‘It is safe, Daniel.’ Scott flashed a weak smile at the third occupant, but it seemed to have no effect.

  ‘You should walk,’ Daniel said to the man.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s better for you. And it’s easier going down.’

  The man looked at Scott. ‘Is he for real?’

  ‘He’s got—’ Scott began. And then he thought, No, why should I have to tell people he’s got learning difficulties? It’s their damn problem, not his.