The Mercy Seat

by Martyn Waites

  ‘And that’s Susan.’

  Then the wife picture. Looking a beat too long, the name always said with such conflicting emotions. Jamal sometimes counted, tried to separate them. Guilt was there, obviously. Rage, hatred, loathing, the last two usually prefixed by ‘self’, veneration, adoration. Betrayal. Take your pick.

  Jamal would just look at them, nod, pass them back without really seeing them. Watch the punter stare at them for longer than he needed to then stuff them viciously back into his pocket, drop his eyes from Jamal. That always left Jamal with a sour feeling of retribution.

  Jamal had wanted breakfast, but Bruce had told him he couldn’t, they couldn’t risk being seen together, what if a colleague from Bruce’s company should be there?

  ‘But I’ll see you later, won’t I?’ Bruce had smiled. ‘You won’t be able to get back to London without me.’

  Jamal had emptily promised to meet Bruce later, arranged a time and place, left the hotel and walked.

  Newcastle was cold. Like edge-of-the-Arctic cold. And really unfamiliar. It had the same shop names, but everything else was different. And they talked funny. Not like English. He didn’t know where to go. He pulled his Avirex round him, wished for something warmer. He smiled to himself. When his plan paid off, he would be in luxury for the rest of his life.

  He found a phone box, called a 118 number, punched the given number into his mobile’s memory. Then a decision to make. Payphone or mobile. Mobile, he decided. Harder to trace than a landline, he thought.

  He ducked into a doorway, made his call. It was answered by a female voice.

  ‘I want to speak to Joe Donovan,’ he said to the voice. ‘An’ don’t give me none a that “he ain’t here” shit, right, ’cos this is a matter of life an’ death am’ talkin’ about, y’get me?’

  It took a while, but they got him.

  2

  Joe Donovan picked up the revolver from the table, felt the heft of it in his left hand, weighed his options. His chest rose and fell, his breath shallow and sharp. He slid a bullet into one of the six chambers. Clicked the barrel shut, spun it, replaced it on the table. He stared at it, his world reduced to that one piece of lethal metal. He breathed heavily – once, twice – then swallowed hard and, eyes screwed tight shut, picked the gun up, pointed it at his temple, pulled the trigger.

  ‘Should be just over this ridge.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope so. That’s what you said about the last two.’

  Francis Sharkey swallowed his reply, looked again at the map in his lap. The bumps and swerves were giving him motion sickness. He looked up again, breathed deep.

  ‘All these blasted B-roads look alike,’ he said. ‘Why couldn’t he live somewhere nearer? Somewhere he could easily be found?’

  Maria Bennett took her eyes off the road, glanced at him.

  ‘I think you’ve just answered your own question.’

  Sharkey tutted, gave up looking at his map. ‘So what’s this place we’re looking for?’

  ‘Ross Bank Sands. Very popular with naturists, apparently.’

  Sharkey looked at the scenery. Rain was hitting the car so hard it felt like they were in the middle of a meteorite shower. The windscreen and windows seemed to have been turned into liquid, melting things. The Northumberland countryside rendered monochromatically drab, distant and barren.

  ‘Too bloody cold for that. For God’s sake,’ Sharkey mumbled, sighing. ‘This place is about as desolate as Norway in winter.’

  ‘I don’t think they come here in winter,’ replied Maria Bennett. ‘And we’re not seeing it at its best. Apparently it’s beautiful in the summer. A real unspoiled paradise. The Secret Kingdom, the tourist board calls it.’

  Sharkey stared out of the window, tried to imagine.

  ‘Secret? Only secret here is that they all sleep with their cousins,’ he said miserably. ‘Or is that Wales? Probably both.’

  Maria Bennett concentrated on the road ahead.

  They had travelled up from London the previous night, stopping in a hotel in Newcastle before picking up their hire car and heading into Northumberland.

  ‘So what was he like, then,’ Francis Sharkey had said at King’s Cross, settling back into his first-class seat, with a gin and tonic and complimentary Daily Telegraph before him, ‘this Joe Donovan?’

  Maria Bennett sat opposite him, duplicate gin and tonic on the way to her lips.

  ‘Best of the best,’ she said, taking a mouthful and replacing her glass. ‘Cliché, I know, but he was.’

  She named a prominent Conservative politician who had been jailed on perjury and corruption charges.

  ‘Remember him? Joe was on that team. His first assignment.’

  Sharkey, despite himself, looked impressed.

  ‘And there were more. Some high profile. One that he did on care homes even led to a change in the law. Had the makings of a great investigative journalist.’

  ‘And then?’

  Maria swirled her drink, watched liquid flow over ice, wondered why ice seemed to disappear faster in drinks on trains than in bars.

  ‘I’m sure you heard,’ she said. ‘All that business about his son. Went off the rails, never got back on.’

  ‘And this was …?’

  ‘About—’ She tipped her head back, frowned ‘—two years ago. About now, I think. Just coming up to Christmas. Yes, that would make him thirty-five. Same age as me.’

  Sharkey smiled. ‘Well remembered.’

  ‘I’d just moved from dep. to editor. Not the kind of thing you’re likely to forget. One of your best, going from reporting the news to being the news.’

  ‘If he was that good, didn’t you try to coax him back?’

  ‘I did but … he wasn’t interested. He wouldn’t return my calls. And then he moved to Northumberland. Where he couldn’t be contacted. I got the message.’

  Sharkey gave a supercilious smile. ‘Seems like someone was interested, though.’

  Maria felt her face flushing from more than the alcohol. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said, her voice trembling on the verge of anger and indignation. ‘Joe was a very happily married man. Very happily married. What happened was a terrible thing. For everyone concerned.’

  Sharkey shrugged and sat back. ‘Whatever you say.’ He took a sip of his drink.

  Maria watched him smacking his lips, smugly surveying the carriage as if the passengers, the staff, the world revolved around him. Exuding the arrogance of the always right. He was middle-aged and greying, wearing his receding hairline, reddened cheeks and nose and expanding waistline as medals given for success and affluence. Voice as rich, dark and polished as old mahogany furniture. She was generally mistrustful of lawyers and solicitors, and he seemed one of the worst examples. But she had to work with him. If she allowed her dislike of colleagues to contaminate her working relationships, she would never have reached as far as she had as young as she had. And that was what mattered most to her.

  The windscreen wipers were working furiously and futilely. Sharkey, Maria noted, still held his arrogant bearing, even wearing a Barbour, casual clothes and what he had described as stout boots. He still managed to look and act as if rain would bounce off him.

  He looked across at her and smiled. She remembered that same smile from the previous evening. The one that had accompanied his advances at dinner. The one that had provoked the polite, yet firm, rebuttal. At first he had acted as if he believed her to be joking, playing the hard-to-get coquette. But the message had eventually penetrated. He had shrugged, walked her gallantly to her hotel door then returned to the bar. She didn’t know what he had done for the rest of the night. She hadn’t asked; he hadn’t told.

  A patch of darker grey appeared through the windscreen.

  ‘I think that’s it,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Sharkey, ‘because if it isn’t I hope whichever poor inbred peasant that lives there knows how to make a decent cup of tea.’

  Joe Donovan opened hi
s eyes.

  A great drumming and crashing sound: the rain, he thought, lashing down on his cottage. He sighed, waited. The crashing and drumming continued. With a groan he realized it was inside his head. And it was worse.

  The room blurred and spun, waxed and waned and throbbed into flawed focus. He waited for it to settle, then attempted to pull himself upright. No good. As soon as he moved it began to spin again. He flopped back, panting, eyes scanning the room, looking for clues to fill in the black spots in his memory.

  The upturned tea chest coffee table before him bore an empty bottle of Black Bush, the old revolver. He groaned, closed his eyes. Tried to piece together the fragments of memory. Build a chronology from blackout.

  He remembered:

  The noise in his head had started again, building, trying desperately to find respite, release. Like a JCB revving up, tearing up the tarmac with its fierce-toothed digger. He couldn’t get rid of it, couldn’t drive it out.

  Then the images playing over and over again. David there, then gone. There, then gone. Hunting everywhere, trying to think of something – anything – that could bring him back. Something overlooked, a rediscovered memory, a previously unthought-of clue. Nothing. Just David gone and the JCB tearing up the tarmac. Too much.

  Then the whisky became involved. From Black Bush to blackout. Sometimes it was enough. Most times. But every time was taking longer, requiring more booze to make the journey successful. This time it didn’t work.

  And then the revolver had become involved. He had found it hidden under the floorboards, left there by the previous owner. It was old, but it still worked.

  The pain building up so he couldn’t think, see or hear …

  He had taken it out, looked at it.

  David there, then gone. There, then gone.

  He had chambered a single bullet from an equally ancient box of ammo, spun …

  The JCB tearing the insides of his head apart …

  And fired.

  Click. An empty chamber.

  He had replaced the gun on the table, sat back and sighed heavily. He shook from head to foot, felt hot sweat prick his body, breathed short, stabbing breaths. Then noticed.

  The JCB had stopped. Silence in his head.

  There, then gone.

  He had lain down on the sofa then, knowing nothing until he had woken moments ago.

  Donovan took a deep breath, attempted again to pull himself to a sitting position. With a groan he succeeded. He sat there, letting what he had done the night before sink in.

  He had tried to kill himself. And failed. He looked at his hands. They were shaking from more than the whisky in his system. His actions terrified him but, more than that, thrilled him. He had been given a reprieve. He had cheated death. He remembered how he had felt before slipping away into sleep: at peace with himself. Satisfied.

  He sighed, shook his head. He knew it wouldn’t last.

  He swung his feet to the floor and yawned. Tired, and he had just woken up. His head, stomach lurched then stabilized. He wasn’t going to throw up. He thought of what he could do with the day. Thought of making a cup of tea.

  Then came a knock at the door.

  Donovan looked quickly around and felt a sudden stabbing pain in his head as if his brain were sloshing around in a bucket.

  Must be a mistake, he thought. Ignore it.

  Another knock, more insistent.

  Donovan stared at the door, trying to see through it.

  Another knock, this time accompanied by a voice calling his name.

  No mistake. Someone wanted him.

  His heart began to quicken. Perhaps it was news. Even after all this time he still had hope.

  He slowly peeled himself off the sofa, made his way through the tiny towers of building materials to the front door and opened it. The noise of the wind and rain increased. Cold northern air blew into the cottage. Donovan felt it penetrate his clothes, hit his skin like hard, dry ice.

  Before him stood two figures, one vaguely female huddled beneath heavy, brightly coloured outdoor clothing, the other a tall, middle-aged man wearing a Barbour and a miserable expression. He looked as cold as he was wet, and he was very wet indeed.

  ‘Joe?’ said the woman.

  She tilted her head up. It took a few seconds, but Donovan recognized her.

  ‘Maria …?’

  He didn’t know what else to say. He was stunned to see here there.

  ‘Can we come in, please?’ Maria said. ‘It’s freezing out here and soaking.’

  Donovan numbly stood aside to let them in. He closed the door behind them. They stood there dripping on to the floor, tentatively undoing and removing their outer layers. He was aware of them looking around his living room, making judgements on both it and him as they were doing so. He looked, too, seeing it through their eyes.

  It looked like a building site during lunch break: tools downed and waiting for the workforce to return and resume work. Dust accreted on ladders, paint pots and tools told of a long, long lunch break. Walls a jigsaw of exposed brick and crumbling plasterwork, light bulbs hanging from frayed wires like dolls from toy gallows. A sofa, armchair, table and dining chairs all vied for space with bags of cement and sand, piles of bricks and wood standing on the stained and dusty floorboards. A TV stood on two upturned plastic fishmonger’s crates.

  He didn’t ask them to make themselves at home.

  Maria forced a smile.

  ‘You’ve been decorating, Joe.’

  ‘Made a start.’ His voice sounded strange inside his own head, like a car undriven for years, the gears harsh, grinding, rusted over.

  ‘This is Francis Sharkey,’ said Maria, pointing at the other man. ‘He’s a … work colleague of mine.’ The man smiled, in approximation of a hearty greeting, stuck out his hand to be shaken. Donovan looked at him, nodded.

  Maria turned around, patted her arms about her body, blew into her cupped hands. Donovan looked at her face, blank then quizzical. Then he understood.

  ‘I’ll put the heating on.’

  He crossed to an old Calor gas heater in the corner, struck a match, held it. Hissing whoomed to blue flame. He turned, faced them.

  ‘So what d’you want?’

  Maria crossed space to be beside him. As she did, she glanced at the makeshift coffee table, saw the empty bottle. The gun. She looked back at Donovan.

  Donovan’s features hardened. His eyes became hot as lava, cold as stone.

  ‘Why are you here, Maria?’

  She looked back at him, fearful now, as if she was treading on an area of unsafe land, expecting an abrupt descent to quicksand at any second.

  ‘We’re … we need your help, Joe.’

  A gust of wind threw rain against the window with machine-gun force. Donovan ignored it, stared at her. Waited for her to continue.

  ‘Gary Myers,’ she said. ‘Remember him?’

  Donovan nodded.

  ‘He’s gone missing.’

  Donovan shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘He was working on a story. Meeting someone who had something important to tell him. We don’t know what, but something big. Very hush-hush. You know what he was like, played it close to his chest until he had the whole thing put together. Then, another piece of crusading journalism for us. Usual thing. Our trademark.’

  Donovan waited. Maria stood uncomfortably.

  ‘D’you mind if I sit down?’ she asked.

  Donovan shrugged, pointed to the sofa. Maria sat.

  ‘Um …’

  They both turned towards the door. Sharkey smiled at them.

  ‘Do you have a loo I might use?’

  Donovan told him where it was. Sharkey picked his way noisily through the debris.

  Donovan looked out of the window. Beyond the smudgy monochrome of the deserted beach, the cliffs and the roiling North Sea, he saw the ghost image of himself staring back through the glass. Hair long, greying and unkempt, matted almost to neo-dreads, straggly-bearded, eyes dark and sunk
en. Old jeans and a jumper. He glanced back at Maria, sitting there all primary-coloured polyesters, and saw himself from her perspective. He hadn’t just let himself go; he had become abandoned.

  He crossed to the sofa, sat down next to her.

  ‘What were you saying?’

  She recoiled from him slightly. Stale booze-breath and unwashed skin would do that, he thought, almost touched by shame.

  ‘Gary Myers,’ she said, recovering her composure, ‘missing. Along with this person he went to meet.’

  ‘So? What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Because yesterday we got a phone call.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘The Herald. Reception. A voice telling us it had some information about Gary. Telling us how much they wanted for it. Telling us who – and only who – they were prepared to deal with.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You.’

  Donovan smiled, almost laughed.

  ‘Me? Has this person been reading old papers or something?’

  Maria smiled. ‘I doubt it. Too young.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Sounded like a teenager. Black.’

  Donovan smiled again. Muscles straining in unfamiliar ways.

  ‘Black?’ he said.

  Maria reddened. ‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘Urban.’

  Donovan nodded. ‘Urban. Right.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Anyway, he said he was genuine. He had something to trade and he would deal only with you.’

  ‘Why me?’

  Maria sighed. ‘We don’t know. We’ve been over it again and again. We can only think that whatever he has to trade has something to do with you. God knows what.’

  ‘Is this serious, d’you think? On the level? Have you called the police in?’

  ‘We … thought about it. Decided not to. Not yet. There’s no evidence that a crime’s been committed. Perhaps he’s just working on something that he can’t show us yet. You know what it’s like.’

  Donovan nodded, eyes lost to something beyond the room.

  ‘Used to,’ he said.

  Maria said nothing, uncomfortable once again.

  They both lapsed into a strained silence. He smelled her perfume. It was wonderful, the first time he had smelled anything like that for months. It smelled like a glimpse into another world, a past and a possible future. She tried not to stare at the gun on the table. Eventually she sighed.