The Mercy Seat

by Martyn Waites

  Caroline said nothing. She had heard it all before.

  ‘Yes, well … They outsmarted us, didn’t they? Good and proper. Remember? The drainage? The tarmac?’ He shook his head, lips curled in angry remembrance.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘And there they were … all round the houses, sneering at us, taunting us to challenge them … selling furniture out of the back of vans, trying to scare us into having our houses reroofed, our drives done … thieving from us …’

  Caroline laughed in exasperation. ‘No they didn’t. They weren’t like that at all.’

  There were small points of fire in Colin’s eyes. ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? They showed a different side to you. But I saw them as they really were …’ He sighed.

  Caroline looked at him confused. This wasn’t the father she knew talking. He caught the look, cast his eyes down.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That was unfair.’

  She nodded.

  Colin continued, his voice smaller. ‘It was awful, it really was. Awful. Hell. I was trying to come to terms with Helen’s death, with your mother’s death, to mourn … and all I could see and hear were them … They terrorized us …’

  He shook his head as if to dislodge the memory. Risked a look at his daughter.

  ‘And then you got friendly with them.’

  Caroline rolled her eyes. ‘Oh Dad …’

  ‘Well, you did. That biker.’

  ‘Tosher? So what?’ Caroline attempted a shrug. ‘He was a nice guy.’ She leaned forward. ‘If you’d taken the time to get to know him, you’d have realized he wasn’t the monster you thought he was.’

  Colin shook his head. ‘I just remember thinking … I’m glad your mother wasn’t there to see her daughter with …’ He sighed. ‘Oh I don’t know …’ He shook his head again. ‘I was being driven mad. Helen was gone, you were with that … that biker … I wanted them to go. And I wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  Colin took a deep breath as if steeling himself.

  ‘Alan Keenyside invited me round.’

  ‘Alan Keenyside? The policeman? What for?’

  Colin looked away.

  ‘He had a proposal …’

  And Alan Keenyside’s house was before him again. And there was Keenyside himself in polo shirt and chinos; weekend leisurewear as much a uniform as his weekday suits. Coming towards him, all affable smile and miss nothing eyes.

  ‘Drink, Colin?’ The light catching his eyes, sparkling like diamond in dark, subterranean graphite.

  ‘Ah … no, no.’

  ‘Go on … one won’t hurt you …’ Those eyes again.

  Colin caved in. ‘Just the one.’

  Keenyside nodded. The right answer. He turned, disappeared.

  Colin stood in the hall of Keenyside’s house, not sure whether he was supposed to follow or not. He stayed where he was. Looked around.

  The house was new, one of the larger ones in the development. Decorated by Keenyside’s wife, Suzanne, with money if not taste. All laminate and leopardskin, glass furniture and ‘artistic’ wall hangings. Bright and shiny. Jamie Cullen making good songs unlistenable on a CD from somewhere in the house.

  Keenyside reappeared bearing two drinks, led Colin to his study, closed the door behind them. This room had none of the brightness of the rest of the house; all dark walls, heavy, reproduction wooden furniture, blood-burgundy-leather chairs and settee. Keenyside handed Colin a tumbler of whisky, sat in his studded-leather desk chair, swivelled to look at Colin, who sat on the chesterfield. The room was manly, businesslike. Books of military history on the shelves. Keenyside sat higher than Colin. Colin felt like a supplicant visiting a feudal lord. The effect was deliberate.

  ‘So,’ said Keenyside, sipping his malt and smacking his lips, ‘what you got for me?’

  Colin leaned forward, hands clasped. ‘It’s about what you were saying the other day, remember?’

  Keenyside gave an imperceptible nod.

  ‘You remember?’

  ‘I want to hear you say it, Colin. You tell me.’

  Colin found his lips suddenly dry. He quickly licked them.

  ‘The travellers. I don’t know what to do, they’re …’ His fingers became rigid; he made involuntary strangling gestures. ‘They’re driving me insane …’

  It all tumbled out of him then. The anguish at Helen’s death, the subsequent pain and madness, the impotent rage he felt at the way the travellers had outsmarted the village, ‘And then there’s Caroline. She’s got … involved … with one of them. A biker. Tosher, she said his name was.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve lost Helen. What if I lose Caroline?’ He held his hands out, imploring. ‘What if she just … rides off one day? And I never see her again?’ He sighed. ‘Something has to be done.’

  Keenyside watched him, sipped his whisky. ‘There’s the legal challenge,’ he said.

  Colin nodded.

  ‘Might be costly. But it’ll probably come out in your favour.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Colin. ‘Might. It might not, too. We might be stuck with them.’ He sighed, ran his hands through his hair. His face was contorted with pain. ‘They won’t go away … and if they do, they might take Caroline with them …’

  Keenyside swirled his glass, watched the ice turn to water, release the oils in the malt.

  ‘So,’ he said, voice quiet, controlled, ‘what d’you want me to do about it?’

  Colin looked up. ‘I don’t know.’ His voice was choked with desperation. ‘But you’re a policeman. Isn’t there … something you can do? Some way to, I don’t know … move them on?’

  Keenyside studied his glass, smiled. Spoke slowly.

  ‘Back in the old days, it wouldn’t have been a problem. They’d pitch themselves up somewhere, piss the locals off and a squad in body armour would turn up at night and forcibly evict them. Burn them out if needs be.’ He shrugged. ‘So I’m told, anyway.’

  He looked directly at Colin, that subterranean jewelled glitter back in his eyes.

  ‘That the kind of thing you’ve got in mind?’

  Colin swallowed hard. He felt hot all of a sudden.

  ‘We’re just speaking hypothetically here, Colin.’

  Colin nodded. His voice became shaky, untrustworthy.

  ‘Yuh – yuh – yes … yes …’

  Keenyside took a sip of his drink. Frowned. ‘Asking a lot, you know. You’d have to put together a crew, shall we say, of like-minded members of the force, get them working off the clock, give them a bit of a cash incentive … Could come to quite a bit …’

  He took another sip. Continued talking, his voice as smooth as the malt.

  ‘And then there’s the risk involved. An illegal operation like that, if something went wrong …’ He shook his head.

  Colin said nothing. His head was beginning to ache.

  Keenyside sat back. Light picked out the spines of books behind him. Anthony Beevor: Stalingrad. Berlin. Andy McNab’s novels in hardback.

  ‘Hypothetically,’ he began, ‘this could be dangerous for the person in charge. Say me, for instance. In that case it would be only fair that the person who wanted this thing to take place, namely you, should shoulder some of the risk himself.’

  ‘Wuh – wuh – what d’you mean?’

  Keenyside looked thoughtful. ‘You do a lot of research at your lab, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, not me personally—’

  ‘MoD stuff? Top secret?’

  ‘Look, I …’

  Keenyside was warming to his subject. ‘Biological warfare? Viruses that could be weaponized? Should imagine there’s a big demand for that kind of thing. War on terror and all that. How much would something like that go for on the open market? To the highest bidder?’

  ‘I … I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Oh don’t be coy, Colin. I bet you get approached.’

  ‘Well, yes, sometimes, but …’

  ‘
Millions, are we talking?’

  ‘Look.’ Colin was almost shouting. His head was aching. ‘What has this got to do with the travellers?’

  Keenyside sat back, a look of shock on his face. ‘Just …’ He gave a small shrug. ‘Talking hypothetically, Colin. Risk assessment. Once you commit yourself to something like this, you’re in it all the way.’

  Colin said nothing. Stared at the floor. His untouched drink. The ice melting. He sighed. Keenyside pressed on.

  ‘Anyway, that’s one hypothetical solution. Another would involve you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘What we would need,’ he began ruminatively, ‘would be something from your labs. Something that could dissolve in water, be colourless, odourless. Untraceable in the human system.’

  ‘A poison?’

  ‘Yes, a poison. I’m sure you’ve got loads of stuff like that lying around up there. What we do is introduce it to the water supply they’ve just installed, then watch them fall over one by one. Blame it on some kind of bug. Impurity in the system they set up. Or use a traceable poison. Make it seem like a suicide pact. Make them out to be some kind of death cult.’ Keenyside gave a small laugh. ‘Exciting, isn’t it? Like working for the CIA.’

  Colin shook his head. The pain increased. ‘No … no … That’s awful …’

  ‘Drastic times, Colin, drastic measures needed.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘You can always go home, Colin. Back to the noise, the smell. Back to your new neighbours.’

  Colin shook his head. The ache had become a pain.

  ‘Ever heard of Chechnya?’ asked Keenyside.

  Colin nodded.

  ‘Lots of stuff gone on there you never hear of over here. They have a way of dealing with undesirables. Want to hear it?’

  Colin said nothing, just sat, shoulders slumped.

  Keenyside told him. How the Russian army treated their prisoners. Made an example of them to the rest.

  Told him about the gas masks. The mustard gas.

  The torture and interrogation.

  The broken prisoner returned, a human warning to the others.

  Told him how it could be applied to their problem.

  ‘All we would need would be one person,’ Keenyside said. ‘Just one. And when they see what’s happened to him, they won’t want to stay around in case the same happens to them. Just one. To make an example of. Can you think of one you’d like that to happen to?’

  Colin said nothing. He looked in pain.

  ‘I can,’ said Keenyside.

  Colin shook his head.

  He locked eyes with Colin. ‘D’you want rid of them, Colin? Really want rid of them?’

  Colin sighed. The inside of his head felt like it was being chipped away at by hundreds of tiny pickaxes. He couldn’t think.

  ‘I want … peace …’

  Keenyside kept his eyes locked.

  ‘Peace costs,’ he said. ‘Real, long-lasting peace.’

  ‘How much?’ His throat felt parched.

  ‘Financially? Nothing. Only your complicity.’

  Colin stared wildly around, pained and lost.

  ‘That or nothing,’ Keenyside said.

  Colin looked at the floor. Picked up his untouched whisky. Downed it in one. Nodded.

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  Keenyside smiled. ‘Good man.’ He sat back.

  Colin felt exhausted. Dirty. Sweat ran and danced all over his body. He was shaking.

  But his headache seemed to be receding.

  ‘I feel like Faust … with Mephistopheles …’

  Keenyside kept smiling, his eyes glittering.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said. He pointed a finger at the other man. ‘Your glass is empty, Colin. Another?’

  Colin nodded.

  Caroline stared at him. Like she was unable to reconcile the father she had known all her life with the things he was telling her.

  ‘Tosher … what happened to him?’

  ‘I … I don’t know …’ He looked away from her, hid his eyes. Tried not to look in the centre of the room. At the stains on the floor. ‘I just appropriated their compound for them. I don’t know.’

  ‘Appropriated … You let them …’ She shook her head, incredulous. ‘What about the rest of the travellers? What happened to them?’

  He saw flames dance before his eyes. Heard screams and cries of pain.

  ‘I said I don’t know,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t know … what they did …’ He sighed, shook his head. ‘Look, I had to do something. I’d lost Helen. I could have lost you.’ He sighed. ‘I had to do something …’

  The words had sunk in. Anger was beginning to rise within Caroline now. ‘What d’you mean you had to do something? It was never going to last between me and Tosher. You knew that. It was just a bit of fun. God knows I needed it after all we’d been through. He and I just went out a few times. Rode on his bike with him. That’s all. I was never going to go away with him. You knew that.’ She shook her head. ‘My God …’

  ‘That’s not how it seemed to me at the time …’ He was close to tears. ‘Look, I knew what I’d done was bad. I tried to make it up to you with the flat. Helping you move, decorating, helping you pay …’

  Caroline stared at him, eyes cold. ‘I just … I don’t know what to say to you …’

  He reached out his hand to her.

  ‘Don’t touch me. Just don’t touch me.’

  Colin said nothing. Stared at the chain that bound him to the radiator. By extension, to his daughter. He gave another sad, slow shake of his head.

  The silence stretched out. Eventually Caroline spoke.

  ‘And all this—’ she gestured with her hand, rattling the chain as she did so ‘—Keenyside, the whole thing, is because of what you did to Tosher?’

  ‘Kind of,’ said Colin in a small voice. ‘An extension of that, you might say. A consequence. Let me explain.’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. ‘I don’t think I know you. I don’t think I want to know you …’

  The silence stretched out indefinitely.

  And now she lay there sleeping. And he watched her.

  Not knowing what she was thinking about.

  What she thought of him.

  What he thought of himself.

  26

  Donovan had always found seaside towns out of season depressing. He imagined this one just as depressing in season.

  Jaywick Sands just beside Clacton. A flat stretch of Essex sliding into the North Sea. Perhaps it had once been a thriving, pleasant resort – although Donovan doubted it – but was now in terminal decline.

  Peta drove, Donovan map-read. Out of London, up the A12 to Essex, superstores, retail parks and industrial estates proliferating, then receding, replaced by flat, functional countryside, neatly divided into utilitarian strips and squares.

  Donovan had woken up in the hotel room entangled in his sheet and duvet, his hair lank and sweat-plastered to his head, mouth crusted, body stinking of sweat and guilt.

  He lay back and groaned, let the past night’s jigsaw fit itself together.

  The music, the booze.

  The ghosts, the gun …

  Then nothing.

  He looked to the side of the bed, confused to see, amid all the strewn papers, a duvet and pillow there. Then remembered.

  Peta.

  And groaned again.

  On the pillow a note, hoping he managed to get some rest and a time to meet her in the restaurant for breakfast.

  He looked at his watch, slowly pulled himself from his bed, forced his way into the bathroom, head spinning, stomach churning. His hangover, he knew, wouldn’t shift. It would hang around all day, resurfacing like a guilty secret, reminding him of its presence.

  He showered, trying to shove the previous night to the back of his mind, made his way down to breakfast wearing an old Batman T-shirt and olive-green combats. He was wary about meeting Peta; he couldn’t remember what he had told her.
He found her sitting, pink-cheeked, perky and radiant from her morning swim, eating a toasted bagel and fresh fruit, drinking Earl Grey tea. She looked up at his approach.

  ‘How are you?’ Real concern in her eyes.

  Donovan shrugged. Peta nodded.

  ‘You OK for today?’

  Donovan nodded.

  ‘Good,’ she said. Went back to her bagel.

  Donovan stared at her. ‘Look,’ he began uncomfortably. ‘Last night. I might have said some things that … I don’t know, I’m …’

  She smiled. And Donovan felt like he had a friend. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Honestly.’

  He nodded. ‘Thanks. Sorry for being a …’

  ‘Nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve all been there. Or somewhere similar. Part of being human.’

  Donovan looked at her, wanting to ask more, not daring.

  She shrugged. ‘You’ve had a rough few days. Let’s forget it. Get some food inside you. You’ll feel better.’

  He did as he was told, ordered himself a full English. If he couldn’t stop his heart with a gun, he thought wryly, he would find another way.

  It arrived. A piled mass of oil-fried comfort food. He stared at the egg, saw his spoon-faced reflection in its bulbous yellow eye. He looked sick.

  Started eating.

  ‘Right,’ said Peta, businesslike, ‘Today. Jaywick. Is that right?’

  Donovan nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said through a mouthful of bacon, ‘Jaywick. In Essex.’

  ‘And that’s where this Tosher now lives?’

  Donovan nodded. ‘He was kind of a spokesman for the travellers back then. Self-elected, of course.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Dark, long-haired, good-looking biker.’

  Peta smiled. ‘Nice.’

  ‘And an arrogant, cocky bastard. The type who goes through life knowing he’s going to get away with whatever he wants to do.’ The smile still hadn’t faded from Peta’s face. ‘Obnoxious. Mouthy. Just in case you’re getting any ideas.’

  Peta ignored him. ‘What’s he doing in Jaywick?’

  ‘Settled down, apparently. Regular citizen, now. That’s how I found him so quickly.’

  ‘Born to be mild.’

  Donovan smiled. ‘Very good.’

  Peta pointed to his plate. It was empty.