by David Mark
COLIN RAY holds the smoke in his lungs and feels his eyes begin to water. Feels the tickle in his chest.
Hold it, Col, hold it . . .
He’s made it up the stairs without needing to breathe out.
Six, seven, eight steps down the off-green corridor.
Eyes streaming, chest thumping . . .
Turning the handle and entering into Interview Suite B.
He breathes out. Fills the cold, damp room with the smell of cigarettes.
“Thought you deserved a treat,” he says, and then gives in to a fit of hacking coughs.
Police interview rooms have been no-smoking zones since 2007. Smokers are at the mercy of their investigators when it comes to a nicotine fix. Colin Ray is not feeling merciful. Left the interview to pop outside for a cigarette, and declined Alan Rourke’s request to accompany him.
“Should give them up, lad,” says Ray, scraping the chair back from the desk and sitting down forcefully, wiping his eyes and then his nose with the heel of his hand. “They’re doing you no good. You look like shit.”
Rourke looks up. Shrugs. “Must be like holding up a mirror.”
Ray gives a smile. He’s enjoyed the past hour of verbal jousting with this hard, unshakable traveler. Rourke has given nothing away. Declined the offer of a solicitor with a wave of his hand, and launched into a variety of “No comments.” He looks thoroughly unconcerned. Has the appearance of a man who will sit there forever rather than genuinely help the police with their inquiries.
The door opens again and Shaz Archer walks in on unfeasibly high heels. She’s been to change her clothes, having failed to get Rourke’s attention in her previous outfit. She’s wearing fashionable patterned tights, an expensive mid-length skirt, and a floaty polka-dot top over a black vest. She looks stylish, sexy, and not at all like any of her colleagues. She’s the opposite of Helen Tremberg. She emphasizes her sexuality and is happy to give suspects a glimpse down her top if it means they start talking to say thank you. So far Rourke doesn’t seem to give a damn.
“Looking hot, Shaz,” says Ray, pursing his lips approvingly.
“I was freezing. You could hang your hat on my nips.”
“I don’t wear a hat.”
“Wasn’t talking to you, Col.”
Across the table, Rourke gives an appreciative, knowing smile. He doesn’t bite.
“Smells like an ashtray in here,” says Archer, lowering herself into her seat and crossing her legs with a sensual, shushing sound of nylon on silk.
“Spray your scent, love. Give us a treat.”
Archer reaches into her handbag and pulls out a bottle of perfume. Gives it a squirt. Sprays some more on her wrists and then elongates her neck to dab it beneath her ears. She does the whole performance sexily, but Rourke pays no attention. Just carries on staring at the wall. Only turns to her when the smell hits his nostrils.
“Smells like a brothel now,” he says.
“That’s Chanel,” says Archer tartly.
“Expensive brothel,” he says in reply, and gives an outlandish yawn.
Ray nods to his colleague. She swivels in her chair and turns on the tape recorder.
“It is 8:09 p.m. Detective Chief Inspector Colin Ray and Detective Inspector Sharon Archer interviewing suspect Alan Rourke. Now, Mr. Rourke, where were we?”
Rourke rocks back on his chair. “We were here, love. Having a ball.”
“Indeed,” says Ray, sucking his cheek and scratching at something unpleasant-looking on the lapel of his dirty pin-striped suit. “We were talking about your fingerprint being found on the bottle that was thrown at a police van. We were talking about your dogs attacking two police officers. We were sitting here, all ears, waiting for you to open your mouth and treat us to some of that fucking gibberish you pikey bastards speak.”
With the tape now recording every word, Ray should really be more careful what he says, but if he is concerned about repercussions, he hides it well.
Rourke says nothing. Gives a wry smile.
“Go n-ithe an cat thu, is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.”
Ray and Archer look at each other. “Come again?”
“May the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat.”
Ray scratches his face with his dirty yellow fingernails. Pushes his greasy hair back from his face. Chuckles noiselessly.
“That the family motto?”
“We’re a dog family.”
“Yeah, we noticed. So did Pharaoh.”
Rourke nods, looks down. Sighs. “She okay?”
“Still waiting to hear more,” lies Ray. “We’re fearing the worst.”
Rourke stays silent. “I stayed with her,” he says at last. “Could have gone, couldn’t I? I locked the dogs up. Called you. Held a towel to her throat . . .”
“You’re all heart,” says Ray, pushing himself back from the table.
There is silence in the room for a time, Ray and Rourke eyeing each other up. Ray had begun the interview, presuming it would be a matter of time before Rourke gave something up. Here, now, looking across the table into the retired armed robber’s eyes, he is beginning to doubt whether he will ever give in.
“You’ve done long stretches, Alan,” he says, changing tack. “You don’t want to see another prison cell. We just need some answers. Some information. Let’s start with the boy. Our missing teen. What’s your connection?”
Rourke turns away again. “No comment.”
“It doesn’t sound convincing when you say it, Alan. You know you want to comment.”
“Honest to God, no comment.”
Archer reaches into her handbag and retrieves a piece of chewing gum, which she pops into her mouth. She holds the packet for both Ray and Rourke. Rourke accepts. “Cheers, love.”
She smiles, friendly and warm. “You understand how seriously we’re taking this,” she says, leaning forward. “Two incidents, Alan. The petrol bomb and a dog attack, both placing the lives of respected police officers in real danger. And you linked to both. You must know that this isn’t going to go away. I understand completely that you have a code. You don’t like the police. But I don’t think you’re the sort of man who would deliberately set fire to a vanload of cops. And I know it was the lad who gave the order for the dogs to attack . . .”
Anger flashes in Rourke’s face. He curses in Gaelic. Apologizes. Nods.
“They are your dogs, though, Alan. You’ll be the one crying when they’re put down.”
For the first time, Rourke’s eyes show emotion. He bites down on his lip.
“We have some sway with all this, Alan. It’s not a done deal. The dogs are being well looked after. They’re safe with our specialist dogs unit. Having a little holiday. But they want to go home, and so do you. Just give us something to think about. Tell us why your fingerprint was on that bottle. Just a story, Alan. Something we can look into and discount you from our inquiries.”
Rourke yawns. Chews his gum. Looks up at the ceiling, as if the most interesting story he had ever read is written up there.
Ray loses his temper. “You’re going to give me something, lad. You’re going to fill in the gaps for me one way or another.”
Rourke turns his attention to the senior officer. Gives a rueful shake of his head, as if considering a puppy who has once again failed to control its bladder. “Always comes to that, doesn’t it. You’re all as bad as each other. Fucking thugs, all of you. All my life I’ve had you lot looking over my shoulder. Always comes down to the same thing. I’ve done my time, sir. Moved on. I’ve not been in trouble in a long time. And still I get you on my doorstep. I told the guy last month, you can threaten me all you want, I don’t have anything to say to you . . .”
Ray sits forward suddenly. “Last month?”
“Round face. Smart suit. One of your top dogs.”
> Ray turns to Archer. Tells her to stay quiet without opening his mouth. Switches his attention back to Rourke.
“You were questioned recently?”
There is nothing on the database to indicate Rourke has had any dealings with the police in a long time.
“Don’t know if it was questioned,” he muses thoughtfully. “Given a talking to, more like.”
“In connection with . . .”
Rourke shuts up again. “No comment.”
Ray slams his hand down on the desk. “Which officer?”
Rourke appears to consider the implications of not giving away this snippet of information. “Russell,” he says at last.
Archer’s body language gives away the fact that this is significant, and Rourke’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Did he not put that on your little machine? Hardly a surprise. Would take some balls, that. Though I tell you what, sir, it takes some balls to threaten a man when his Rottweilers are by his side. He turned as green as these bloody walls. Don’t think he really made his point the way he wanted to.”
Ray slumps back in his chair. Presses his lips together. Wonders whether the traveler is telling the truth. Adrian Russell is head of the Drugs Squad: the last surviving member of the corrupt team that had morphed into the Serious and Organized a year ago. He’s also Colin Ray’s friend.
“Did he talk to you about drugs?”
“No comment.”
“Robbery?”
“Ask him.”
“You will fucking talk to me . . .”
Rourke smiles, all teeth and eyes.
“No I fucking won’t.”
• • •
11:41 P.M., MORPETH STREET, HULL.
Flickering streetlights and pouring rain. A terrace of student bedsits and low-income flats, where every second window shows a poster for a club night, and where the small front yards are home to mountains of ripped garbage bags, pizza boxes, and broken furniture. Where different styles of music hum and blare from open windows, and the shimmering color of giant flat-screen TVs flicker from curtainless front rooms.
Nineteen-year-old Georgie-Lee Suthers sits on the front step of one of the better-looking houses on the street. She is smoking a cigarette and playing with her phone.
She is dressed as a dead bride: her charity-shop dress powdered with talc. There is a livid slash of color at her throat. Panda eyes look out through a ghoulish white face, and her legs in ripped fishnets are a canvas for an advancing army of ink spiders.
The rain is ruining her makeup, but the Mateus Rosé and shots of rum have pitched her past caring. She looks at her phone. Hopes there will be a message. An apology. Advance warning of a busload of guests.
Georgie-Lee bites down on the filter tip of her cigarette and pouts. “Thanks a lot.”
It was supposed to be a party, but nobody could, in good conscience, call it anything other than a gathering.
Georgie-Lee has tried for the past three hours to make her housemate’s birthday something special, but not even the cramped confines of their two-bedroom flat can make the paltry dozen guests seem anything other than a disappointment.
She had worked hard at making the night a success. Arranged for friends to take Jen shopping while she set to work blowing up balloons and arranging chocolate crispy cakes and half-frozen sausage rolls on the coffee table. Even made a playlist for the iPod from their shared party tunes. Had a nice glass of wine and danced around as she covered the flat in fake cobwebs and skeleton silhouettes. Threw a bag of fake spiders around and drew pupils on Ping-Pong balls to drop in the “witches’ brew.”
With only half an hour to go before Jen was due back, Georgie-Lee realized that she should have made people confirm their attendance. The thirty or so university friends who said they would definitely try to be there have let her down. Jen has made all the right noises, of course, but even when she went and changed into the skimpy vampire costume that Georgie-Lee had picked out for her, it was clear she was neither in the mood for this nor pleased that nobody else was, either.
Georgie-Lee plays with her phone. Wonders whether she should update her Facebook status to read “Thinking of getting friends who actually give a shit!”
She won’t, of course. Georgie-Lee cannot bring herself to be mean to people. She doesn’t like conflict or an atmosphere. Instead, she logs on to the site and tells anybody who cares to read it that she is having “the BEST time ever!!”
She rubs out her cigarette on the wall and thinks about going back upstairs. When she came down for some air, a mad professor and a werewolf were going through her DVD collection and demanding she apologize for the absence of any samurai movies. She does not particularly want to go and jolly everybody along and pretend the party is something it is not. She wants them all to go, now. Wants to give Jen her present, then watch a horror film with the lights off.
Georgie-Lee looks up. Tries to catch some rain on her face, but the awning of the doorway means she is relatively dry, even if the cold air makes her shiver. She looks down her street, wondering if she should knock on doors and ask anybody who looks even vaguely interesting if they would like to attend. She wonders whether the two lads who live at number 57 are home, sitting watching DVDs in their downstairs flat, but her view is blocked by the presence of a large four-by-four, parked directly in front of the low wall that marks the border of her own property. It’s an expensive-looking vehicle, but it has been in the wars. The front bumper is crumpled and the headlight cracked. She wonders whom it belongs to. It seems out of place.
She scrolls through her Facebook posts. Comments on a friend’s photo. Wonders whether she can be bothered to change her relationship status again, and decides she’ll leave it for now. She and her boyfriend break up and get back together every week or so, and the frequency of the changes is becoming embarrassing.
She flicks over to Hull Ink. Stefan has appointments free tomorrow. Devon is booked up all day, but he has uploaded some pictures of his old black-and-white stuff.
Indulgently, Georgie-Lee flicks through the various galleries, comparing the images on display. She finds herself wondering, again, who would go to the trouble of having Eeyore or Winnie-the-Pooh tattooed on themselves. Questions why somebody would walk into a tattoo parlor and ask to be branded for life with the lyrics from a Coldplay tune or the picture of a dead granddad. None of it is pretty, and to Georgie-Lee, prettiness is paramount. Her own ink makes her wriggle with pleasure, and to see it on the website, paraded for the masses, still gives her a genuine thrill.
She expands the picture. Looks at her own bare back. A solid brown branch, spreading from the top of her right buttock to the nape of her neck; curving, like a stream, into slender twigs and delicate flowers; a collage of overlying blossoms, against a shimmering lake of lilies.
The design is not really her own. Legally, she supposes, she should not even have it upon her skin. But she had subtly changed the design and added her own little motifs, and Stefan had enjoyed the opportunity to perfect the image that he had inked on another girl some months before.
She looks through the various posts that accompany the image, secretly hoping that somebody will have added a compliment, but the four “like” icons and one “love this” from an old school friend, have not increased in number.
It had hurt less than she thought, and despite predictions that it would take four sittings, Stefan had managed to finish in two. She watched him in the mirror as he worked, his face locked in concentration, the pirate ships on his forearms moving up and down as he drew, as if on gentle seas.
For a time she had planned to make her first tattoo a fairy castle; all daisies and scampering imps. But then she saw the ads. The glossy half-page in the Journal. The boy with the peacock feathers and the girl with the blossoms. She had booked herself in almost immediately, brandishing a copy of the mag and insisting that the tattooi
st who had created the vision do the same for her. He had told her about copyright laws and artistic rights, and she agreed to some tweaks to the design. Added a lily pad, and a tiny hummingbird on an upper branch. Asked if they accepted credit cards, and then stripped herself to the waist.
“You coming back up?”
She looks up. A head is poking out of their second-floor window, masked by a cheap polyester Afro and a Michael Jackson Thriller jacket.
“Won’t be a sec,” says Georgie-Lee, and the head withdraws.
She takes a breath. Practices her smile. She is incapable of being the gloomy one in the room. Needs, always, to be jollying along and perking up.
She pulls herself up to a standing position and slips her phone into the elastic of her elbow-length black mesh gloves.
She turns away from the street, stopped before she has taken two paces by the sound of a car door slamming. It is close. Close enough to suggest that perhaps another visitor has arrived, more partygoers out to salvage the evening.
She traces the sound to the stranger emerging from the four-by-four. Gives an accepting nod, and spins away from the road.
“Suzie.”
Georgie-Lee wonders if she has misheard. On instinct, she turns in the direction of the noise.
In a moment she is crashing backward; strong, powerful limbs bearing her to the ground.
A forearm, pushing up beneath her chin, forcing her head back onto the cold, wet tiles. Another hand, tearing at her wig, rubbing away the white powder, the black eyes.
She squirms. Tries to squeal.
And now she is being flipped. Rolled onto her belly. Feels as though she is being clawed open. Hands, nails, tearing at her dress.
Sudden cool air on bare skin; fingers ripping back the flimsy threads, wrenching her bra strap upward so that the underwire digs in beneath her breasts . . .
“Help. Please . . .”
