The Mercy Seat

by Martyn Waites

  Sighing, he pulled his now-battered jacket about him and set out for the bridge. Walking over to the city, heart heavy, body weary, ready to find the places where he would be wanted.

  21

  Donovan knew it was a dream. But that didn’t make it any more bearable.

  He was back in the department store. With David. Sea of humanity all round him. Everything monochrome.

  He knew what was going to happen.

  The same dream, back again. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t change it.

  There, then gone.

  There, then gone.

  The crowd slowed down, changed from fluid sea to dense, immovable mass. Donovan’s legs wouldn’t work. Body wouldn’t move.

  Then the dream changed.

  The air became colder, Donovan’s breath coming out in plumes of steam. Monochrome turned silver and grey. Stark, shivery hues. The crowd parted. And there stood Maria. Draped in the sheet she was covered with in the mortuary, skin pallid, drained, throat a livid, black mess.

  ‘Maria …’ Donovan heard his own voice.

  She stared at him, eyes devoid of emotion, of life.

  ‘Please,’ he heard himself say, ‘come back. I want you back …’

  Then David was at her side. Standing close like mother and son. Same pale skin, blank eyes.

  Donovan shook his head. ‘No …’

  Maria spoke. ‘The future.’

  Donovan tried to cross to them but couldn’t move quickly enough. David lifted his arm and, with dream logic, the scene changed again.

  Father Jack’s house. The crowd behind Maria and David turned, stared at Donovan. Hatred, the threat of violence in their eyes. David pointed a finger at Donovan.

  ‘He let the children go … Get him …’

  And they were on him. Donovan couldn’t move, couldn’t find the will to defend himself, to run. The mass of bodies fell on him; pummelling, ripping, scratching, screaming.

  They pushed Donovan to the floor.

  Like the world was crushing him.

  Donovan didn’t fight back.

  Just let it happen.

  Donovan woke, fighting for breath.

  Coughing, like he was swallowing his tongue.

  He lay back on the bed, breathing deeply. His body filmed with a slick of sweat, he threw the covers back. Opened his eyes.

  Behind the heavy curtains, dawn threatened. Thin beams of light crept into the hotel room, deepened the shadows for his ghosts to hide in. He lay there, unmoving. The day brightened, the light strengthened. The ghosts retreated. Back into the shadows.

  Back inside him.

  He pulled himself out of bed and into the bathroom, wearily abluted. His body, his head, ached. Longed for a rest that sleep couldn’t give him.

  He stepped into the shower, turned it up high; water hit his skin in hot needles.

  His mind ran back over the events of the previous day. He steeled himself for what he had to do next.

  * * *

  The Herald promised to e-mail him with all the information they had on Colin Huntley. His laptop was on the desk, plugged into the hotel’s broadband connection.

  He looked around, waiting. Sighed. He couldn’t stand being in the room. He couldn’t sit down, couldn’t concentrate on anything.

  His CBGBs T-shirt was on the floor next to his holdall. Where he had thrown it in his haste to be naked with Maria on Saturday night.

  Emotions welled inside him: sadness, anger, loneliness. He picked up the T-shirt, screwed it into as small a lump as possible. Threw it as hard as he could against the wall. It landed with a sound too soft to be a slap, slid slowly down the wall, came to rest on the unmade bed in a crumpled heap.

  Donovan, drained by the throw, crumpled next to it. He picked it up, put it to his nose. Her scent still clung faintly to it. He breathed in, trying to give it artificial respiration, will her back to life.

  He smelled her perfume … felt her skin …

  Another breath …

  Sensed the air from her mouth blow softly on his skin …

  Another breath …

  Her fingers trace their way …

  He stopped. Opened his eyes.

  Felt nothing but alone.

  Pushing the T-shirt into his face to catch the tears.

  Sat there, silent but for sobs, immobile but for deep, shuddering breaths.

  Rode the wave out. He stood up.

  His head spinning, all mist and fog. His stomach writhed like a snake pit.

  He glanced at his holdall. The barrel of the revolver was sticking out, catching the light, winking at him.

  Tempting him.

  He could just walk over, pick it up, spin it and …

  No. That wasn’t the way.

  His mobile rang.

  He sighed, annoyed yet grateful for the interruption. He answered it. Peta.

  ‘Listen, Joe …’ She was struggling with her words. ‘I just heard from Dave Bolland. About Maria …’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Donovan, sighing. ‘Yeah. She’s dead.’

  He couldn’t believe what he was saying was real. Only increasing repetition of the words confirmed it for him.

  He nodded. ‘Dead …’

  The tears came again. Peta waited, the silence on the line electric.

  ‘Look,’ she said eventually. ‘If there’s anything I can do. Anything Amar or I can do. Please, just … anything.’

  He broke the connection. Sighed. Looked again at the gun.

  It no longer winked at him, tempted him.

  He threw his CBGBs T-shirt at it, hiding it.

  He switched his mobile off. The only person he wanted to hear from was Jamal. Donovan had left messages but the boy wasn’t answering. It worried him, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would turn it on later, try again. The rest – police, Sharkey – could wait.

  He checked his laptop. He had mail. He settled himself down before it. Sighed to shake the fog from his head.

  Began to read.

  Dr Colin Huntley was a biochemist working for NorTec, a chemical company with its main British base in Northumberland. Most of their work was in the commercial and industrial sector, creating, testing and supplying various solvents and detergents. Boring stuff, it seemed to Donovan, although a full client list revealed that beyond the usual household name-owning multi-nationals there nestled the MoD.

  He tried not to let his imagination run away with him, read on.

  The plant had suffered what looked like an attempted break-in three months previously. It was quite a low-level thing, the reports said, the wire-mesh fence cut, CCTV cameras put out of action, but the building’s security didn’t seem to have been breached and nothing apparently was taken. The conclusion the police had reached at the time was that it was some kind of eco protest that had broken down, perhaps the perpetrators losing their nerve. The police had looked into it again in the light of Colin Huntley’s disappearance but had concluded there was nothing to link the two events.

  He read on.

  Colin Huntley lived in Wansbeck Moor.

  Donovan sat back, thinking.

  Wansbeck Moor. The place seemed familiar to him for some reason. He read on, hoping that reason would come to him.

  Wansbeck Moor was an exclusive upscale enclave in one of the most picturesque, yet accessible, areas of Northumberland. An entirely artificial community of executive houses built round a sculpted village green and containing shops, a school, a golf course and a village pub. It was one step away from being a gated community, although the price of the houses alone ensured exclusivity. Any outsiders would have been quickly noted.

  And dealt with, thought Donovan. He remembered the place now. He scrolled down.

  And there it was.

  A group of Irish travellers had set up camp in a field just by the main body of houses. The newly created village had been the target for travellers several times in the past, so much so that the residents had formed a consortium in order to buy the surro
unding land from the farmers who owned it in an attempt to deter any more travellers from setting up camp there. The field they had chosen was one that the consortium owned.

  The villagers, thinking they had, legally, the upper hand, weren’t too concerned. However, when the travellers delivered a retrospective planning application on a Friday night, knowing that the local council offices were closed, then spent the weekend installing drainage and sewerage, hooking up generators and creating a flat, tarmacked surface for the caravans to rest on, the villagers’ position changed.

  Donovan remembered the story. He had decided to cover it for the Herald. It wasn’t his usual type of story; they usually involved cover-ups, corruption or social injustice. He remembered that this represented, for him, the shrivelled, Daily Hate Mail heart of middle England getting its comeuppance. And that, he had thought, was worth gaining as wide an audience for as possible. Holding values he found hypocritical and hateful up to public ridicule. If they had been asylum seekers as well as travellers it would have been even better. Suburbia’s own pathetic War on Terror.

  He folded his arms, stared at the screen.

  Two years ago. Something there … He had been working on the story when …

  When David disappeared.

  He shook his head, read on.

  But there was nothing else. It simply stated that legal proceedings had been started but not allowed to progress. The travellers had moved on.

  Something there …

  There had been a reason he had gone to Wansbeck Moor, a deeper reason beyond the one he remembered. Something that tied the story in with his usual type. Cover-up. Corruption. Social injustice.

  He thought. But couldn’t remember. All his memories from round that time were inaccessible. It was self-preservation: like a corrupted section of a computer hard drive memory, cordoned off so the rest of the machine could still function.

  Donovan frowned.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Sharkey, he thought. He crossed the room to answer it, invective at the ready. Pulled the door open.

  ‘Hello, Mr Donovan. Sorry to disturb you again so soon.’

  The curses died on his lips. DI Nattrass and DS Turnbull.

  ‘Could we come in, please?’

  Donovan stood aside, let them in. ‘Make yourselves at home,’ he said.

  He gave a quick glance at his holdall. The revolver was still hidden beneath the T-shirt.

  Nattrass sat on the edge of the bed. Turnbull stood, looking around. Donovan sat on the bed also. Looked at Nattrass.

  ‘Have you got someone?’ asked Donovan. ‘For Maria?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Nattrass, ‘but we will. Got another couple of questions for you, though.’

  Donovan said nothing, waited. He was aware, through his peripheral vision, of Turnbull prowling the room. His actions irritated Donovan. He was coming to really dislike the man.

  ‘As we said earlier,’ said Nattrass, ‘Maria Bennett’s notebook contained details of Colin Huntley.’

  ‘As does your laptop.’

  Donovan turned. Turnbull was standing by the desk, scrolling up and down the screen. He looked at Donovan, vindication and triumph in his eyes.

  Nattrass threw him a questioning glance.

  ‘You mentioned it yourself,’ said Donovan. ‘Said Maria had been looking into it. So I did, too. Wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t.’

  ‘And we wouldn’t be doing ours properly if we didn’t question you on it,’ said Nattrass. ‘Did you find anything?’

  Donovan flattened his eyes, looked at Nattrass. ‘I’d just started looking.’

  Nattrass’ flat, poker eyes never left his. She nodded.

  ‘We’ve had a look at Ms Bennett’s mobile phone records. The Herald supplied them to us. Most of the calls we can trace. But there’s one we can’t. An unregistered number. She called it approximately six hours before her death. They then returned the call.’ She read the number out.

  ‘Ring any bells?’ said Turnbull, pleased with himself.

  Nattrass glanced at him, unable to hide her irritation with her junior colleague. She turned back to Donovan, poker-faced once more.

  Donovan recognised Jamal’s number. Shook his head slowly. Said nothing.

  ‘We’ve got an eyewitness saying that when Ms Bennett approached Caroline Huntley’s flat she was accompanied by, and I quote, “A coloured lad. Looked like one of them rappers.”’ She shrugged, gave him the poker face. ‘Anything?’

  Donovan tried to return the poker face.

  ‘No,’ he said. He resisted the urge to swallow. Or look away. Or blink.

  Nattrass didn’t drop her gaze.

  ‘Mr Donovan, we want to find Maria’s killers as much as you do. What were you working on when she died?’

  Donovan felt Turnbull circling behind him. Making him feel uneasy.

  ‘Does that matter?’ asked Donovan.

  Nattrass sighed.

  ‘Look,’ said Turnbull, standing directly in front of Donovan, legs apart, hands on hips, ‘it’ll be better in the long term if you cooperate. Better for you, I mean.’

  Donovan looked up. Eyes the same level as Turnbull’s crotch.

  ‘Or what?’ he said. ‘You’ll give me a lap dance?’

  Nattrass looked away. Donovan caught the ghost of a smile on her lips. Turnbull reddened.

  ‘Right …’ he said.

  Nattrass intervened.

  ‘We’ve spoken to her newspaper,’ she said, ‘and they’ve told us she was up here working on a story with you. They couldn’t tell us what. Told us to speak to either yourself or Francis Sharkey.’

  ‘And you are.’

  All three turned to the door. There stood Sharkey, unable to stop grinning at the dramatic impact of his arrival.

  ‘The door was open, so …’ He shrugged.

  Sharkey entered the room, handed his card to Turnbull. ‘Francis Sharkey. I represent good ship Herald and all who sail in her. Even those—’ he looked at Donovan ‘—who just get caught in her slipstream.’

  Donovan frowned, opened his mouth to speak. Sharkey ignored him.

  ‘Now,’ said Sharkey, voice polite yet commanding, ‘since I’ve introduced myself, would you be so kind as to supply me with your names?’

  Nattrass told him, handed him her card. Indicated Turnbull.

  Sharkey nodded. ‘Good. Well, now that introductions have been made, I believe you had questions to ask both myself and my client.’

  Sharkey looked between the two of them. Turnbull wanted to go ahead, but Nattrass indicated they should leave.

  Turnbull, begrudgingly and silently, did so. Nattrass turned to Donovan.

  ‘Remember our earlier conversation, Mr Donovan,’ she said, voice hushed.

  ‘Which?’ said Donovan. ‘The one about exchanging information or about me not playing cowboy?’

  ‘Both,’ she said.

  Donovan nodded.

  ‘You’ve got my card.’ Nattrass stood up, nodded at Sharkey and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Sharkey smiled at Donovan, pleased with himself. ‘If I hadn’t been a newspaper lawyer they’d have had us down the station by now,’ he said. ‘Trying to sweat the truth out of us in a tiny little room.’

  Donovan just stared at him. Sharkey’s jocular mask disappeared. He became sombre, serious.

  ‘May I just express my sincerest condolences,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you—’

  ‘Fuck off, Sharkey,’ said Donovan. He stood up. ‘You’ve kept them off my back. Good. Now get out of my sight.’

  Sharkey remained where he was. Looked at Donovan, his expression businesslike.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Joe,’ he said. ‘Personal differences aside, there are a couple of things we need to discuss. Newcastle’s crawling with media right now, all wanting Maria’s story. I’ve tried to keep them off you, but I think the best thing you can do is talk to one of the Herald’s journos. Get your side of the story�
�’

  ‘Fuck off, Sharkey. I’m not talking to anyone.’

  ‘But—’

  Donovan crossed to the lawyer. Sharkey took an involuntary step back.

  ‘I came here to do a specific job. With a specific person, for a specific reason. Unfortunately that person isn’t here any more. But the job is. And I’m going to see it through.’ He stepped up close to Sharkey, went face to face. ‘And that specific reason had better be there at the end. Or the person who promised it will be in very specific trouble. Got that?’

  Sharkey swallowed hard.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. He looked trepidacious. ‘We still need to talk …’

  ‘No, we don’t. Now get out.’

  Donovan, still eyeball to eyeball, began to walk Sharkey towards the door.

  ‘I … I can see this isn’t a good time for you … We’ll talk later, when you’re feeling more … receptive … I’m, I’m afraid I have a funeral to organize …’

  His words took him over the threshold and out of the door.

  Donovan sat back on the bed, spent. He rubbed his face with his hands, sighed. He looked at the laptop, crossed to it, sat before it. Read, from start to finish again, all the information on Colin Huntley. Twice.

  Thirty-five minutes later, he sat back rubbing his eyes.

  He knew what to do next.

  He switched the shower off, body tingling, and began to towel himself dry.

  Remembered the phone call he had made the previous day to Peta. Asking for her and Amar to help find Jamal.

  ‘Will you be coming along, too?’ she had asked.

  ‘No,’ said Donovan.

  ‘Why not?’

  Donovan sighed.

  ‘Because I’ve got to go home.’

  22

  Donovan lurched forward, opened his eyes. He had been asleep again.

  ‘Good, you’re back,’ said a voice next to him. ‘You can keep an eye out for coppers.’

  Donovan looked around, momentarily confused. Then he remembered. Peta’s car, Peta driving. Headed towards London. He checked the speedometer: touching a hundred on the outside lane of the M1.

  The previous day’s phone call: Peta had persuaded him to allow her to accompany him while he went to London to get his old laptop, go through his old notes. Visit his old home. Where his wife and daughter still lived.