Borrowed Time

by David Mark

  ‘You think it was him?’ she asks, looking at the broken body of her recently deceased business associate. ‘You think he was trying to frame Dad? Frame me?’

  Irons shakes his head. ‘He seemed genuine enough. Doesn’t matter either way. Whoever put that body there isn’t long for this world. And we owe them a thank you, in a way. It’s the excuse you needed. Nobody will argue. Nicholas broke the ceasefire – that’s the story people need to hear. You dealt with it. And the only people who’ll be angry are the people who you’re going to make rich. Don’t give it another thought. I swear, your dad will be proud.’

  The lie hangs between them like gunsmoke. Both know that Mr Jardine is too far gone on his medication to even recognize his daughter or his closest ally. Tumours eat into his pancreas, spleen, liver and brain. He should already be dead. Alison does not wish it so, but she is ready to grieve. She has even picked out the dress she will wear for his funeral.

  ‘This Paris,’ says Irons, thoughtfully. ‘Office is Portsmouth registered.’

  ‘South coast?’ she asks, closing an eye, as if to better focus on a blurred memory. ‘You and Dad had business there, didn’t you? I remember the signs on the side of the van …’

  ‘Don’t look too hard at that memory, girl,’ says Irons, softly. He is the only person allowed to talk to her with such familiarity. ‘You worked too hard to forget.’

  Alison’s thoughts are already starting to accelerate. She remembers a friend, long since turned to ash. Remembers the bad thing that happened, and how far her family fell as a consequence. She looks at Irons, and realizes he is thinking it too.

  She considers the corpses around her and feels mildly aggrieved. She had expected to sleep soundly tonight having removed a nagging irritation. Now she cannot imagine herself finding serenity before the morning. She looks up into the ceiling cavity. She glimpses a ratty, freckled face; a smudge of facial hair across a sweaty top lip and a baseball cap screwed down hard onto short, gelled hair. If she didn’t love him, she’d find the sight of him repulsive.

  ‘Those things he said,’ she whispers to her son, wrapped in darkness and dust. ‘That’s what they think. Out there. Be better. Be a fucking Jardine.’

  She glances back to Jim, leaning by the broken door. Looks again at the dead men. Thinks of that ugly night, and the things that were done to the only friend she’s ever had. Feels the rage build, and looks for a place to hurl it. Irons, as if sensing it, rolls up his sleeve and hands her his cigarette. She crushes out the burning tip upon the dead skin of his forearm. He doesn’t make a sound. Alison smells burning meat, and breathes deep. She nods her thanks. Irons retrieves the cigarette butt and places it in his pocket. Rolls down his sleeve without a word. He is already slipping away into his memories; remembering the last time he’d had business on the south coast and all that it cost him. He raises his hands and touches the wrinkled, ruined skin of his face. ‘Pamela,’ he says, and a pink tear runs through a channel in his cheek. He doesn’t feel it. Feels nothing, save a grief almost forty years old.

  TWO

  Derby Road, Stamshaw, Portsmouth

  October 23rd, 2007, 7.04 a.m.

  This bedroom is a pencil sketch: all fuzzy edges and blurred lines, as though a photographic negative has been smudged with a careless thumb. A watery yellow light dribbles in through a gap in the curtains. It illuminates a ragged, joyless square: discarded clothes camouflaging a threadbare carpet; half-empty bottles stacked up like bowling pins beneath an avalanche of charity-shop books. Condensation, flavoured with cigarette breath and dry white wine, lends a sequined shimmer to the high, honey-coloured walls.

  Adam Nunn splurts into wakefulness as if emerging from a lake; heart pounding, skin goose-pimpled, wrapped in a headache.

  ‘Stop … stop!’

  He cannot remember where he was. Who he was. Why they were doing such things to him …

  The pictures recede like the tide.

  In moments he cannot remember anything at all. He is left with a mild sensation of residual disquiet; the faintest recollection of having been briefly ill-used.

  He centres himself. Places himself. Breathes until his pieces reassemble.

  Considers the world beyond the glass. A city drawn in charcoals and dirt: a place of suet-faced pensioners, of teenagers in baby clothes; of egg-shaped women and puddled men; big middles and conical legs. He pulls the blue bedcovers over his head. Wraps himself in the musk of their mingled scents. Considers himself. He is so tired it feels like paving slabs have been laid on his chest. He tries again to remember the dream. Something about rabbit fur and the taste of old keys. It’s shaken him. Left him feeling a vague unease, as if he has done something wrong.

  He reaches out and feels Zara’s warm, bare shoulder. Eases himself gently behind her. They fit together well. Her, a shade over five feet tall; him a quiff under six. She lifts her head and his arm slides beneath her jawbone. His knees slot behind hers. This is the best he will feel today.

  ‘Stay asleep,’ he whispers, softly, and is relieved there is no tremble to his voice. ‘Dream something pretty.’

  She stirs, nuzzling against him like a cat. ‘I was in a circus,’ she says, opening one eye. ‘An old-fashioned one. Tigers. A ringmaster with a big moustache. I was a trapeze artist. You were there.’

  ‘Clown, was I?’ says Adam with a smile. ‘Exploding car and custard pies?’

  ‘It’s fading,’ she says, concentrating on the memory. ‘You were my partner. You had to catch me after my double flip. You were dangling upside down, arms outstretched.’

  Adam holds her tighter. ‘I’ll always catch you.’

  ‘I’d catch you too,’ she replies. ‘Even if it yanked my arms off, I’d keep hold of you. You’re never getting away.’

  Adam smiles, kissing her neck. ‘You should put that on Valentine’s cards.’

  ‘I liked being in a circus with you,’ she says, and pushes herself against him. ‘I think there was a bearded lady.’

  ‘That’ll be Mum,’ he says, in her ear. ‘You had to spoil it.’

  They lay in a rare moment of silence, breathing in tandem. He tries to think of something funny to say; something to maintain the nice mood she has woken into. Decides that for once, silence will serve him best.

  ‘My arm’s gone to sleep,’ Zara says, after a time. She sits up, allowing him a glimpse of her extravagant skin. He grins, absurdly pleased that he belongs to somebody who looks like this. She is a marble canvas, adorned with flowers, fairies and butterflies. Her back is a frame of bluebells and angel wings, spread as if in full flight. Two hummingbirds dance on her flat tummy, and a sun surrounds her belly-button. Blue flowers and green vines wrap around her wrist and onto the back of her left hand. Roses bloom on her ankles.

  ‘Come here,’ he says, reaching out for her. ‘You are such a poem …’

  The door to the bedroom bursts open without a knock, and a small superhero explodes into the room. It’s Jordan, Zara’s son, dressed in the Batman costume he received for his ninth birthday, complete with muscle definition and utility belt. He is grinning wildly, singing a theme tune from a show that Adam has never heard of, but which has nothing to do with Batman. He is holding his schoolbag in a gloved hand, and the part of his face not covered in black fabric is stained with the chocolatey residue of his breakfast cereal.

  Adam bursts out laughing, pleasantly baffled, as Jordan stops still and stares at him for approval, both hands on his hips and jaw firmly squared.

  ‘I own the night,’ he says, and gives in to a peal of giggles.

  Zara, swivelling to face the door, lets out a burst of laughter. ‘Wow, Jordan, that’s so much more than I can process right now …’

  ‘Do you like it? I’m Batman. Or I’m half of him, anyway – I can’t find the trousers so I’m wearing some of Selena’s leggings. They’re a bit flappy.’

  Zara looks to Adam, hoping he’ll be able to offer an answer. He’s too busy laughing.

  ‘Looks ace
, buddy,’ he replies with a smile. ‘One of your ears is a bit flat though. You could always be Flatman …’

  ‘Ha! Flatman!’

  ‘Why are you wearing that?’ asks Zara, confused.

  ‘Children in Need,’ says Jordan, as though this explains everything. He performs a dive-bomb onto the bed between them. ‘I’m in need, actually. We’re out of Coco Pops …’

  ‘Is it a charity thing?’ asks Zara, still confused. ‘I didn’t get a note.’

  ‘You can wear your own clothes,’ says Jordan, excitedly. ‘For a pound. It’s Pirate Day.’

  ‘Pirate Day?’

  ‘Yeah. So I’m Batman.’

  Adam lets out a little laugh and slaps his forehead with his hand. Zara looks at her youngest child, eyes narrowing. ‘This is going to be a Jordan thing, I can tell. We’re going to laugh about this in years to come.’

  ‘Can I have a pound, please?’

  ‘Jordan, why are you going as Batman if it’s Pirate Day?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What’s Pirate Day?’ asks Adam as tactfully as he can manage through the laughs.

  ‘You can wear your own clothes. Come in a costume, y’know. For charity.’

  ‘So why’s it called Pirate Day?’

  ‘Because you can come as a pirate.’

  ‘Is everybody coming as a pirate, Jordan?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So why are you dressed as Batman?’

  ‘Because it’s Pirate …’

  Zara, half-laughing, lets out a squeal of frustration as she grabs him by his costumed chest and presses her forehead to his. ‘I can feel myself getting dimmer!’ She pulls him to the door, shaking her head, pulling on one of Adam’s T-shirts as she goes. ‘Come on, you halfwit. I’m turning you into Captain Hook.’ She turns to Adam, exasperated. ‘There’s a test for this. If it turns out he really is a moron we qualify for benefits …’

  ‘He’s special, I’ll give him that,’ laughs Adam.

  ‘Come on you,’ she mutters to her youngest. ‘Let’s start by teaching you how to say “arrrr”.’

  ‘There’s a breadknife in the sink,’ yells Adam, as he listens to them giggling their way down the stairs.

  He sits on the edge of the bed for a while, smile fading like a dying bulb. Slowly, predictably, he feels his spirits fade. He always loses the will to be cheerful when she’s not near him. Can’t feel a reason to be sunny on his own. He sometimes worries that it is this fear of how he would treat himself on his own that has stopped him from ever being single. He’s been in relationships for twenty years – always with a brief period of overlap. He falls in love a lot. He never knows what it is he’s searching for but there is something about the passion and possibility of new relationships that intoxicate him. He’s fallen hard for Zara. She’s older than him, which helps. Prettier too. She reminds him of one of the mature students he saw hanging around the art department when he was a student; all piercings and baggy clothes, bare midriffs and Doc Martens. He sometimes wonders whether he is trying to recapture his youth. He never made it all the way through university, dropping out of his Biological Sciences degree at university before he had to take his final exams. He’d been in a bad place. Made some mistakes over a girl and could barely get himself to class without taking a double dose of diazepam. He’d headed home rather than risk failure or a 2:2. Mum and Dad had been happy enough to have him home. Told him he just needed to get his head right and then he could go back and take his final exams. Fifteen years later, he’s still in Portsmouth. Criminal record to his name, a bank account in the red, and a personal life as tangled as a bail of barbed wire.

  He broods on the thought for a while. Rolls it around. Feels himself drift into well-worn grooves of introspection. Money. The future. What he’s for. How much longer can he do all this without it all coming down around him. He’s still making the same mistakes he made as a young man. Still throwing himself – body, soul and bank balance – into love affairs that never seem to fill the gaps within him.

  Adam sits up in bed, angling himself so the light from the window illuminates his lean, wolfish face. He’s slim. Dark-eyed. Stubbly, no matter how close to the bone he presses the razor. People always tell him he looks like his dad. The thought used to be comforting. Now it crushes his heart like a boot.

  Slyly, guiltily, Adam reaches down for the cheap blue laptop, tucked away beneath Zara’s robe and his own inside-out trousers. His neighbour recently spent a fortune installing wireless internet and Adam, dropping off a parcel and accepting an invitation to join him for a glass of wine, had spotted the password on a Post-it note, stuck to the fridge with a magnetic banana. Adam now enjoys the almost magical benefits of being able to use the laptop without having to crouch by a skirting board.

  ‘Come on, Larry,’ he mutters, opening the screen and calling up his email. ‘How hard can it be?’

  He refreshes the screen twice. Checks each folder in his mail. Chews at his cheek, nervous now. The only new email is from a charity he’d contacted months ago – back when the wound was still gaping and he hadn’t known how to put himself back together. He’d filled in an online form, jotting down the paltry details he’d known for certain about himself. Membership of the site had allowed him access to their facilities and regular updates about their work. He truly wishes he’d stayed on this path. If he’d done things properly, if he hadn’t tried to avoid the unpleasantness of painful confrontation, he might have answers by now. He clicks the link on the email, navigating his way to a list of new case studies. Feels the lump grow bigger in his throat as he reads the plaintive words of mothers and children reunited after decades of separation. Scans the accompanying links for new appeals. Has to suppress a shiver as he pores over the desperate, heartfelt pleas. He indulges himself in fantasy for a moment, his eyes hot, palms clammy. Considers what he would do if he stumbled upon a notification from a mother searching for a child given up in 1971. Imagines the wording. Her regret. Her apology. Her wish that things had been different and her certainty that there has never been a day in which she has not missed and loved him. He blinks, hard, as he considers it, and has to cuff himself across the cheek lest disloyal tears start to fall.

  He sits quietly, now, wondering what the day will bring. Thinks of the infinite possibilities. He’ll have to see Dad later. Will have to sit in the grey-green room and listen to the old boy rasp away his final breaths.

  And all the time, the question will be there on his tongue, burning like a hot coal.

  Without wanting to, Adam pictures the old man, and the words he had wielded like a cutlass. Sat there in his armchair in his paisley pyjamas, red lines marbling his eyes, glaring daggers into his son. The words had come from behind bared teeth, frothing onto the stubble of his grey chin.

  We should have sent you back. If you were a toaster I’d have kept the fucking receipt. Could have had anybody and we got you. You were the puppy with the biggest eyes – the one your mother had to have. Should have left you in the cage. Taken a pedigree – not some shabby mongrel. Worst investment of my fucking life.

  Adam had never heard his dad swear before. Never seen him lose his temper.

  The words seemed to come from somebody else entirely, as if the frail old man in the armchair was a conduit for something else. Adam had been too stunned to reply. Just sat there with a silly look on his face, listening to the tick of the clock and the ugly rasp of his dad’s breath as he turned away from him and closed his eyes. On the sofa beside him, his mum was stiff as a dead bird. He didn’t mean it, she said, when they were alone. Doesn’t know what he’s saying, half the time …

  Adam tries to make himself feel better. Thinks of the people around him; the people he loves, the countless reasons to feel optimistic and grateful.

  His thoughts drift back like a kite on a string.

  He wonders if today will bring answers.

  Wonders if today, Larry Paris will call and tell him who he really is.
r />   THREE

  Derby Road, Stamshaw, Portsmouth

  7.16 a.m.

  Inside the unmarked police car, DCI Cass Bosworth tries to suppress a yawn as she listens to the soporific tones of her boss, oozing down the phone like treacle. Bosworth has never mastered the art of staying entirely present when dealing with Detective Superintendent Mick Gray. Drifts off a lot. Makes shopping lists in her head and ranks the skills of ex-lovers when she’s supposed to be making notes and absorbing facts. He’s not dull – he just manages to sound like he’s reading a bedtime story, his words soft and perfectly enunciated, his pauses large enough to drive a truck through. He’s got a lullaby of a voice, even as he’s highlighting the parts of a post-mortem examination most likely to cause the listener’s breakfast to make a U-turn.

  ‘… had the hand in a Lysol bath … not much of the chest left to work with … from the amount of blowfly larvae and the volume of maggots that seethed out of the chest cavity he was definitely on the ground for a period of time before going into the water … definitely dead … twenty-nine major pieces of skull – exceptional work, taken a digital reading but they did things the old-fashioned way … sorting, drilling, wiring the bits back together, bit of a jigsaw puzzle but the hole we’re left with is almost certainly a hammer, though the indentation suggests it may be wooden with a metal binding, so it may be antique … so, factor that in. You have enough officers, yes? It’s important we follow the new protocols …’

  Bosworth realizes it’s her turn to speak. She opens her mouth wide and is rewarded with a satisfying crack at the hinge of her jaw. Beside her, in the driver’s seat, her detective sergeant winces. Inside the warm, moist vehicle, it sounds like a gunshot.

  ‘More than enough,’ says Bosworth. ‘Honestly, it’s overkill, sir. I’m sure the local CID will be grateful for using our resources but I don’t really see why this is something for a DCI …’