I scroll through my phone contacts for Derbyshire’s direct line, but I hesitate. With only a few porn photos and some sexy texts to go on, who’s to say she’ll do anything?
I need more.
I’ll just have to be careful.
Checking the address one more time, I let myself quietly out of the flat and head downstairs.
There’s no sign of the gang and for once, Gordon Terrace is busy with people returning from work. Under the dull orange streetlights, the faces look sallow and ill. No one gives me a second glance. A woman in the baggy, checkered trousers of a chef lets herself out of a front door, and I hear a snatch of the boisterous family life going on within. She closes the door and walks down the path, looking tired.
I follow her to the main street.
The bus stop is crowded, and I ease myself into a gap beside a stroller with a listless toddler staring at a tablet.
It’s getting colder. Under the canvas of the sneakers, my feet are numb. I wiggle my toes and stamp my feet, smiling at the toddler who glances up at me with blank eyes. The eyes of her mother, who is arguing with someone on the phone, telling them that it’s not fucking acceptable.
The rush-hour traffic is heavy. Nose to impatient tail. Checking the bus app to see if it’s close, I see a text has come through from Daniel.
I’ve told Donna I can’t try again because I’ve met someone I care about. I know it’s tough with your brother but if we take it slow?
I’m seriously not in the mood.
I told you I didn’t want a relationship.
The bus arrives, and I get on. Instantly too hot in the parka but feeling somehow protected by its bulk, I find a seat at the back. Heat is pumping from vents by my calves, and the shudders of the engine pass straight through my spine, but at least no one can sit behind me.
I realize that I am scared. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. An unpleasant one.
The buildings thin out as we turn off the main road, and we speed up, past run-down housing estates and warehouses with all their windows broken. The few cars parked by the curb are scratched and dented. Some have crude signs offering them for sale at a paltry few hundred pounds. The sidewalks start emptying out, leaving only the drunks and the elderly and a few hurrying schoolboys. The streetlights cast their faces in a gritty orange glow.
As we draw nearer to the gym, the bus and a car behind us are the only vehicles on the road. If I thought the area around St. Jerome’s was bleak, this place is infinitely worse.
Perhaps all this fuss I am making is for nothing, and Derbyshire was right all along. Perhaps Abe did kill himself. If I lived here, I would.
I hear the rumble of trains before I see the bridge.
Stone’s Boxing Club is set into the arches beneath. Surrounded by a concrete forecourt, the door is a slab of metal, its windows protected by metal shutters. The effect is almost comically macho. I presume Mira has never been here, because surely even she couldn’t miss the fact that this is a gay gym. To my relief, just above the main door is a CCTV camera.
I get out, and the bus roars away. The burgundy hatchback that was following us turns into a side street, and I am left completely alone under a streetlamp.
I take out my phone to photograph the place and see another text from Daniel.
Message received. Over and out.
I stare at it for a moment, wondering whether to reply. It’s so quiet that the sudden thunder of a train passing overhead makes me start. The silence resumes, but for some reason, the hairs on my back are prickling. I turn again, but the street is deserted in both directions. Then I notice a man smoking outside a pub a little way up the road. A squat, drab building with an ugly case of concrete fatigue, its incongruously pretty name is the Blue Mermaid. As I watch, he tosses the butt into the road and goes back inside.
The sooner I’m out of here, the better.
I take the photos and pocket the phone, then, pulling the coat tighter around me, stride up to the metal door and hammer on it with my fist.
An ugly teenager opens it. His tank and boxing shorts reveal a physique far too bulky for his years. Steroids probably. Perhaps he’s hoping to distract attention from his underbite and acne, but the effect is just orcish.
He looks me up and down with an expression of distaste.
“I want to speak to the manager.”
“Stanley!” he shouts, then waddles away, his thighs so big, his legs don’t scissor properly. As he opens a door at the end of the corridor, there’s a sudden cacophony of animal noises—grunts and squeals and roars, added to the slaps and thuds of impact.
Did my brother come here? I wouldn’t have thought it was his scene, but then a beautiful black man emerges from the same door and pads down the corridor to the water fountain. I avert my eyes from his buttocks, clad in shorts so tight, they look painted on. Fair enough, Abe.
A wiry man who must be in his seventies at least emerges from a door to my right. His tracksuit is halfway between street style and PE teacher. He’s even got a whistle.
“Can I help you?”
“I need to talk to you about my brother, Abe Mackenzie.”
We enter a little office that looks out over the rings. Beyond the glass, men are sparring, pummeling punching bags, running at each other with giant plastic pillows, and dancing around like ballerinas, all the while looking intensely, aggressively serious. I stifle a laugh.
“Sit down, please.”
I lower myself into a rickety wooden chair with a cracked red plastic cushion oozing foam. He sits behind the metal desk, his back to the glass.
“How can I help you?” His voice is expressionless.
I’m already the enemy, and I don’t think feminine charm is going to cut it here. “I need to see your CCTV footage from the night of my brother’s accident.”
He looks at me steadily. “Why?”
“I want to know if Loran Ahmeti was here at the time, as he claimed to be. I have reason to believe that he might have been involved in the accident.”
“You speak like the police—only you’re not.”
“No.”
“So why should I hand over the footage?”
“Firstly, because I’m asking you nicely, and unless you’re trying to protect him for a reason, I don’t see why you’d be reluctant. Secondly, I’m a lawyer, and if I decide to bring a private prosecution against Mr. Ahmeti, you will be called as a witness. If you can’t then produce the CCTV footage of the night in question, the judge will want to know why you’ve deleted it. I imagine they will want to look more carefully at your business.”
We stare at one another. It was just a bluff, but I’m pretty sure this place is not completely aboveboard. There are the illegal steroids, for starters.
“What if I say it’s not working?”
“Then I’d be inclined to call the police right now.”
He sighs and pushes his chair back, gazing across at the men slogging it out in the ring.
“Loran and Abe were close,” he says. “I don’t see why he would hurt Abe.”
“Lovers have rows. Don’t tell me he’s not capable of it.”
“Controlled aggression,” he says as he turns back to me, “is not the same as violence.”
“Do you have the footage or not?”
He hesitates, then gets up.
I follow him down the main corridor, and he unlocks a door that leads into a storeroom. A black-and-white screen displays the front entrance of the gym, so still, it might as well be a photograph.
The scene vanishes as he flicks out the disk from the machine on a shelf beneath.
“You’re lucky.” He holds it out to me. “There’s fifty-four days on there, and it only goes up to sixty before we overwrite.”
“You’re going to let me take it away?”
He holds my gaze. I guess h
is faded eyes must once have been a quite startling blue.
“Abe was one of ours. I don’t believe anyone here would ever have harmed him, but if they did, I want them caught. Whoever they are. Tell me what you find.”
“I will. Thank you.” I slip the disk into my pocket and reach for his hand. His grip is crushingly firm.
It’s only as I step back onto the cracked concrete and the metal door clangs shut behind me that I realize I should have stayed inside and waited until the bus was near. Pressing my back against one of the metal grilles, I check the app. Twelve minutes. Shit.
There are no new messages from Daniel. That’s that, then. It’s what I wanted, I suppose. His fault if he’s screwed up his chance with Donna.
Nervously, I glance across at the Blue Mermaid. The strains of “Babooshka” drift across the sidewalk. No one is outside, but I notice that although the place is a complete dive, someone cares about it enough to decorate it with hanging baskets. The pink, yellow, and white flowers draw my eye: they’re the first flowers I’ve seen outside the hospital.
There’s something familiar about the white ones, the single stems branching out into a knot of blossom.
No one’s outside, so I cross the road and approach the pub. The streetlamp shining on the window means that while I can’t see in, those inside will be able to see this lone woman approach. I must be quick.
It only takes a moment for my suspicions to be confirmed.
The white flowers are the same as the ones that were in the jar on Abe’s bedside table.
Growing beside them are some yellow pansies and the same kind of cerise blossom I found around by the bins.
Is this the pub Mira mentioned? The one Loran went to after the gym?
Could it have been him who had my brother’s keys?
Him who came in that first night and took away the dying white flowers?
Was he also planning to leave some fresh pink ones? The ones that ended up by the bins so that Mira wouldn’t find them?
Were they a token of love? Or guilt? Or just flowers for the dead?
There’s a burst of laughter from inside. If this is Loran’s pub, he could arrive at any time. I turn and start walking quickly, back the way I came.
But coming level with the gym, I see there isn’t a bus stop on this side of the road. The closest one is behind me, just past the Mermaid, but now three men are standing outside, lighting up. I will walk farther up.
As I cross the side road, I notice the burgundy hatchback that was following the bus, parked just down from the corner. The driver is still sitting in the driver’s seat.
It’s Loran Ahmeti.
Our eyes meet.
I’m halfway across the road now, so I keep walking—perhaps he hasn’t recognized me in my hood—but once I’ve passed out of sight around the corner, I quicken my pace.
The hood against my ears muffles the sound, so I pull it down. I’ll be easier to spot, but at least I’ll hear any footsteps following me.
But why should he be following me? How can he know what I have discovered? He might just have been heading for the gym and stayed in the car to make a phone call, or wrap his hands, or whatever boxers do.
Unless someone at the gym has warned him I was there asking questions.
The sound of a car engine starts up.
I quicken my pace. Glancing behind, I see the burgundy nose of the hatchback nudging out of the side road. From the angle, I know it’s not going in the direction of the gym.
He’s coming for me.
But I’m in luck. A van is coming down the main road, and he must wait for it to pass before he can pull out.
I run.
Up ahead, the road divides into two, but they’re both dead straight. Whichever one I take, he will see me. The bus stop is a few hundred meters down the left fork, but there’s no one waiting, and the houses that surround it are in darkness. Then I notice a block of shadow a little way down the right-hand fork. It must be the entrance to an alleyway. A place to hide.
There’s no time to think of another plan.
With the brief shield of the passing van, I sprint across the road and dive down the alley.
Broken bottles crunch under my feet, and as my eyes get used to the gloom, I make out high breeze-block walls that have been liberally graffitied. There’s a faint glow coming from the other end of the alley. It must be a short cut linking the left and right forks of the main road. That’s my escape route if he comes this way.
But I can’t hear the engine anymore.
I ease along the wall and peer out. There’s no sign of the car. Maybe he wasn’t coming for me at all. Maybe he just went home.
Deciding to wait a bit longer before emerging, I retreat into the safety of the darkness, my ears pricked for any sound. A couple of cars go by, none, I think, the hatchback, and I back up farther to escape the sweep of their headlights.
I have no idea where I am or what time it is. I just know I don’t want to be here when the pubs let out. I’ll check when the bus is due and then dive out at the very last minute. I take out my phone and tap it into life, casting this small section of the alley in a cold pool of light.
Loran Ahmeti is standing a few feet away from me.
I try to run, but he grabs the hood of the parka and yanks me back, throwing me against the wall. His grip on my shoulders is iron, thumbs driving into my clavicles. I scream, but the sound is swallowed by the high walls. No one is coming to help me.
31.
Mira
You are back.
I hear the car engine and look out the window. As you head toward the building, you glance up again at Abe’s window.
Is it the sister that you like? She is a fine, handsome woman. Handsome in a European way, like a man almost. She does not wear feminine clothes or sparkly makeup or curl her hair into the full waves of the women in magazines, but perhaps this is what you like. Perhaps England has spoiled you for farm girls like me.
When I hear the door, I check my appearance in the black mirror of the oven and am smiling when you walk in.
You do not look at me.
You go straight over to the sofa and open one of your fitness magazines. The knuckles on your right hand are bleeding, and there is a cut on your forehead, just below your hairline. I thought you always wore gloves to box. I wonder whether to ask about it or just to bring you a bowl of warm water and cotton wool. But your jaw is set and your brow is low, so I leave you alone and start slicing tomatoes for supper.
The flat is so silent that I hear when your breathing catches. I wait for you to cough. I will bring you a drink. But you don’t cough. Your breathing shudders, and then you are sobbing.
The pages of the magazine flutter in your shaking hands, making the glossy brown flesh smear.
Drying my hands, I go over to you and kneel down. It is difficult now that the bump is so big.
I take your injured hand and am glad when you squeeze back. Your grip is so tight, it hurts, and you look at me with red, hollow eyes. How long have you been crying?
I wonder if she has ended things with you. Or perhaps you ended it. For the baby. For us. I know what it feels like to lose someone you love, and though I should feel jealous, I just feel pity for you.
“It’s all right,” I murmur in our language. “When the baby comes, it will be all right. I promise. We will love him. That is all the love we will need.”
You grip my hand so tightly, the bones crunch together, and the eyes you turn on mine are as beseeching as a child’s.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “Mira, I’m so sorry.”
When you say my name, I start to cry.
32.
Mags
If I’d worn my stilettos, I might have had a chance, but the sneakers are too soft to hurt him as I kick out wildly.
The phone
light goes out as I grip it tightly, and the darkness is filled with my snarling cries and his grunts as he tries to restrain me. I give up on the kicking and start trying to knee him in the groin, my brain spinning through all the ways he might kill me. A slash of broken bottle across my throat, those big hands strangling the life out of me. Or simply kicked and beaten and left to bleed in the darkness.
Then, a miracle. My knee makes contact, and he grunts and loosens his grip.
I twist free and bolt for the light of the road, slipping on the remains of old takeout containers, the blood rushing so loudly in my ears, I can’t hear if he’s coming after me.
The alley elongates impossibly, the road becoming more distant the faster I run. My thighs burn, my lungs ache, my veins are electric wires of adrenaline.
I’ve almost made it. I can see the bus stop.
Someone there! A stocky skinhead in a bomber jacket. If I scream loud enough, he will surely hear me. I open my mouth.
A hand slaps over it, and I am wrenched back into the darkness.
As I slam into his body, I can feel the slabs of muscle moving against my back. He must be twice my weight, strong enough to lift me off the ground with one arm, until I’m thrashing through air, trying to bite the fingers clamped around my mouth.
In desperation, I jerk back my head. There’s an explosion of pain in my sinuses and a sickening crack. And then I am falling, free. Landing heavily, I roll onto my back. Oblivious to the glass and food slime, I kick out at him, aiming for any target that might come within range as I scramble crablike toward the road.
But this time, he doesn’t try to stop me. He stands back, holding his palms up. In the light from the streetlamps, I can make out his face more clearly. His lips are moving; he’s saying something I can’t make out over my screams.
Eventually, my voice grows hoarse and still he has made no attempt to silence me or murder me. My adrenaline is subsiding, taking with it my last ounce of strength. Dragging myself to the wall, I lean there, panting. For a brief moment of silence, we just stare at each other.
The Girlfriend Page 20
