by Joseph Knox
They separated into two and stood, motionless, in the gloaming. I saw their breath in the lantern-lit November night, puffing out excitedly, bridging the gap from one to the other. In a matter of seconds they seemed to grow calmer, their breath less dense in the air, until there was nothing left between them.
I refocused and caught my own reflection in the window. There wasn’t an expression of concern or shock on my face. I just looked interested.
I turned away and was surprised to see Isabelle Rossiter, watching me from the corner of the room. She was backed up against the wall with a bottle of wine, and I could tell she’d seen my fascination reflected in the glass. Her blonde hair was neon under the lights.
‘Hello again.’
‘Oh, hey,’ she said, like she’d only just noticed me. She drifted over, looking at nothing in particular. She nodded out at Carver and Sarah Jane. ‘They can be really good for each other, sometimes.’
‘What’s good about them?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve seen him get a smile out of her.’
‘Is that so rare?’
‘Have you got one yet?’
‘I’m still working on you.’
‘I could use one,’ she said. ‘What are you doing right now?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘When you were born.’ She raised an eyebrow. It reminded me of her dad. ‘I’m just big on astrology,’ I said.
‘I’m sure we’d be compatible …’
‘Really? Do you have a name?’
‘You’re old-fashioned. It’s boring.’ She smirked. ‘All you need’s my number.’ She was half-joking by this point, and I liked her more for it. When I started to leave, she took my hand. Dropped the femme fatale act.
‘It’s Isabelle. My name’s Isabelle.’
‘Three syllables? I’ll never remember that.’
She smiled, finally. ‘My friends call me Izzy.’
‘Friends?’ I said. I looked out into the garden. Carver and Sarah Jane were walking back towards the house, both of them expressionless. My reflection in the glass of the patio door still stared back at me, but it wasn’t even interested now. It was cruel. ‘Is that what they are?’
She tugged my hand. ‘How do you know Sarah Jane?’
‘I told you, I don’t.’
‘And I told you, she doesn’t let people in unless she knows who they are.’ She passed me her bottle of wine. ‘Thought I owed you one, for last time.’ I gave her a weak smile and walked out of the kitchen, back into the sea of bed-wetter twenty-somethings.
She doesn’t let people in unless she knows who they are.
I wondered if that had been a warning. The people moved slowly, but I had almost reached the front door when a large, hot hand squeezed my shoulder. I turned to see a bloody-nosed Zain Carver staring straight at me. He jerked his head back towards the kitchen, then leaned into my ear and said,
‘A word, brother.’
13
The house party crowd parted easily for Carver, owing more to reputation than size. They glanced at me with fading smiles, even concern. They’d seen the bloody nose that Sarah Jane had given him. Music still blared from the next room but I barely heard it. He walked ahead into the kitchen. I took a breath and followed.
Isabelle was gone but there were three of us. Zain Carver, myself and Grip, the man I’d argued with earlier. He looked like a reanimated corpse. In the direct light of the kitchen I could see that his left arm was smaller than his right, but there was more to it than that. The entire left side of his body was warped and diminished. His eyes were inflamed and painfully wide.
‘That’s him,’ he said.
‘Close the door,’ said Carver, to no one in particular. I reached out to do it, felt the sweat on my palm when I touched the handle. I was blocking off one of my possible exits and some chemical survival instinct said Don’t. I tried to ignore it. With the door shut the music was almost entirely blocked out.
‘That’s him,’ Grip persisted. ‘Fucking took a swing at me.’
Carver smiled off into the silence. There were several lights on in the kitchen, each facing a different direction. Because of where he was standing, he cast two stark shadows.
‘You took a swing at Grip?’ he said.
‘No, I didn’t.’
Grip spat in the sink as though I’d put a bad taste in his mouth. His left arm didn’t move naturally with his body, but trailed behind it like an afterthought.
‘He’s a liar, then?’ said Carver.
‘Confused. I’m sure he gets that a lot.’
Grip took a step forward, then thought better of it. Instead, he took a wine bottle by the neck and smashed it into the wall. He held the sharp end up at me and said, ‘Keep talkin’ shit.’ Glass and red wine pooled together on the floor.
Carver looked at him. ‘Was an accident, I’m sure. This guy—’
‘Aidan,’ I said.
He paused at the interruption. ‘Aidan had the presence of mind to clear the room while I was …’ he smirked, searching for the word, ‘talking to Sarah.’
Grip stood, flushed in silence. He seemed to be mentally scrolling through every word he knew, searching for the right one. He still held the smashed bottle by the neck.
‘Where’s Sarah Jane now?’ I said.
Carver nodded at Grip. He paced across the room, shoulder-barged me and walked out. For the moment that the door was open again, the music, the world, boomed back into the room. A rapper was shouting about starting out from the bottom, over a brooding, moody beat.
Then the door swung shut.
Carver took out his phone, leaned against a work surface and started scrolling through messages. Occasionally he stopped, tapped out quick replies and then went on. A couple of minutes passed before he said anything. He didn’t look up.
‘Why you asking about Sarah Jane?’
I started to answer but he cut me off.
‘Why you hanging round Rubik’s? Why you telling Cath you’ve been here before?’
‘I have been here before.’
‘Come onnnn.’ He smirked. ‘You hadn’t last Friday when you told her you had …’
I didn’t say anything.
‘You’ve been noticed, Aid.’ He was still scrolling through messages. ‘And not just by Cath, not just at Rubik’s. Staff in the Hex have seen you seven times in two weeks. Likewise The Basement, and we’ve got you on CCTV at The Whistlestop.’ They were smaller, satellite clubs that the Franchise operated out of. Spotted around, from the Locks, into the city centre and even into the northern quarter. Carver glanced at me then went back to his phone. ‘Mystery white boy. You’re turning into my best customer.’
‘Seemed like a way in.’
‘Fake it ’til you make it? Not here, brother. I told Cath to slip you an invite if you were angling for one.’
‘Why?’
‘You keep showing up. You’re persistent.’ He shrugged. ‘Thought you must have something to say for yourself. Double-time, though, I’ve got a hundred unread messages competing for my attention.’
‘I’m no one, really—’
‘Filth are one rung lower than no one in my book. Detective Waits, innit?’ He looked up, over my shoulder. When I turned I saw that Grip was standing outside the patio doors, smoking a cigarette, still holding the smashed bottle by his side. He winked at me. It looked painful. I felt the sweat pooling on my lower back. That animal survival instinct, now saying, run. Carver laughed and went back to his phone. ‘Don’t look so worried, brother. I read the papers. No one gets in unless I know ’em.’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Stealing drugs from evidence? Taking bribes? I know enough. You sound like my kind of copper. With one difference. They binned you off. Suspended, pending further investigation.’ He was reading from a news story about me on his phone. He scrolled down and winced. ‘Bad picture of you, there, Aid.’ He squinted. ‘No black eye, though.’
‘They haven’t binned me yet.’
‘Near enough, and I’m drowning in friends as it is. Some of whom have actually managed to hold on to their jobs. So if that’s all—’
‘Got any friends on the ghost squad that’s investigating you?’ He looked up from his phone for the longest time since we’d started speaking. ‘Any friends who even know what a ghost squad is?’
‘Go on, then.’
‘A completely off-the-books operation designed to sting corrupt police officers.’
‘Off the books, how?’
‘Granted special powers for a particular focus on officers who neutralize evidence and betray law enforcement operations.’ He didn’t say anything. ‘Sounds like that might describe some of your friends.’
‘Why wouldn’t my friends know about this?’
‘All confidential. All staffed by older heads.’
He smirked. ‘Why would some old heads after some bent cops be interested in me?’
‘Cus it’s your lucky day, Zain. It’s always your lucky day. It’s been your lucky day every day for the last ten years.’
He nodded at Grip through the glass. I saw him turn and walk further down the path into the garden. Carver took a drink, pushed himself off the work surface and walked over to the doors.
There was something physically unnerving about him, aside from his size. He moved like an actor in the round, always aware of his surroundings and the effect they had. Low ceilings, light configurations and phones became props when he was in a room, and he used them at will to amplify or diminish himself. Even his accent altered slightly depending on who he was talking to. It went further than that, though. He projected parts of people back at themselves in a disconcerting way. The laconic passivity of Sarah Jane, or the controlled aggression of Grip. With me he became opaque and difficult to read. It was like talking into a funhouse mirror reflection of myself.
‘Maybe I’m just lucky, brother. What can I tell ya?’
‘That’s probably what they’re wondering, too. What can Zain Carver tell us if he stops being lucky …’
‘What makes you the messenger?’
We both spoke quietly now. ‘I’m not coming at you like a man on the turn, because I’m not. But you said it yourself.’ I nodded at his phone. ‘There’s a bad picture of me there. My job ended in a pretty public way and I’m wondering if I’ve got anything valuable. This is big, and it touches people with money. Where else would I be?’
‘If this ghost squad’s so confidential, how come you know about it?’
‘Got me where I am today.’
‘You were on it?’ I didn’t say anything and he guessed again. ‘No.’ He started to laugh. ‘They busted you?’
‘That’s just it. They had the chance to, but they didn’t. Whatever I was or wasn’t taking from evidence should have been untraceable by existing standards. It was untraceable. Until one day my clearance to the fifth floor was restricted.’
‘So someone got wise.’
‘No. Someone had set a trap. I was pulled into an interview room and questioned. The cop in charge was an out-of-towner, reading from a script. First alarm bell, they didn’t want to give away who was running the thing locally.
‘The questions focused on money troubles, third parties, blackmail. Second alarm bell, they already had a profile in mind.
‘Now, this was more than a sackable offence. It was heavy jail time. Instead, when they realized I wasn’t their man, I was transferred out of headquarters without a word. Third alarm bell, they didn’t want any noise.
‘And all the time I’m wondering who’s got the clout to spot me, restrict my clearance and hush it up. Then I start to wonder why they’d take the trouble.’ Carver pocketed his phone, full attention now. ‘The only thing that made sense was that I’d walked into a sting, and that they had their hearts set on something, someone, bigger than me. Dirtier than me. An arrest at headquarters might send the real target underground. So, I’m transferred away from the operation and a few weeks later some flimsy charges arrive. The ones you read about in the paper.’
‘And you pluck a ghost squad out of thin air?’
‘Better than that: I found them. I knew it had come from a higher-up, and I knew it had come from inside Central Park. So I spent a few days watching who came and went. I crossed a lot of names off my list, made a note of some others. Then I saw Derek Wright.’
‘Should I know him?’
‘Chief Inspector. Apparently retired in March, but still showing up to work in October. Then I spotted Redgrave, another supposedly retired old head, then Tillman. Retired cops sneaking in and out the back door. That’s why your friends won’t know about it.’
‘And how would these old heads be filling their days?’
‘Working through historic case files, finding patterns, taking appropriate action. I’m betting when it comes to cases where Zain Carver got lucky, the same detectives’ names keep cropping up.’ I let that hang in the air for a second before I went on. ‘Then it’s just a case of applying the right kind of pressure to those detectives, telling them whose boyfriend they’ll be in prison. They get your so-called friends to feed you the wrong information and your luck starts to run out.’
Carver massaged his jaw with a knuckle. It was a bad habit of mine and I tried to remember if I’d done it in front of him.
‘Why should I believe any of this?’ he said. ‘You’ve been fired, you’re after one last payday—’
‘Take it or leave it. But if you’ve got a friend on the force, they can confirm the gist easy enough.’
He eyed me. ‘Go on, then. How?’
‘Between five and six p.m., if they’re watching, they’ll see Wright, Redgrave and Tillman leaving police headquarters on the east side.’
‘Any day?’
‘Tuesday to Friday, from what I’ve seen so far. Wright and Tillman usually clock in between eight and nine. Redgrave’s variable.’
He let me see that he was thinking on it. ‘And what do you get?’
‘What happened to Sarah Jane tonight?’ I wanted to sound conflicted. To steer the conversation towards the personal. He frowned like Who the fuck do you think you are? I looked back. Neither of us moved for a second and he started to laugh.
‘Y’mean, is she buried in cement at the bottom of the garden?’
‘I read the papers as well.’
His smile curdled and he took a step closer. ‘You’re gonna come in here talking about Joanna?’ I didn’t say anything and he pushed me. ‘Eh?’ I didn’t think he’d actually lost his temper. He was just showing me it was a possibility.
‘I told you, I can’t come here like a man on the turn, because I’m not one. I can work for a businessman without thinking twice. I don’t know about a killer, though.’
‘Sarah Jane went out to cool off, but she’ll be back.’ He paused. ‘Some days I think Joanna will be, too. I haven’t read this appeal, but I’m glad it’s happening. They shouldn’t have forgotten her for so long. I never did.’
‘What happened to her?’
He frowned again. His phone started vibrating and he patted down his pockets for it. ‘Wright, Redgrave and Tillman?’ I nodded. ‘Come back next week. If there’s something in it, I’ll do right by you.’ He answered the phone and I started to leave. Before I got to the kitchen door he raised his voice. ‘It’s true what I said, y’know.’ He sounded sincere but I didn’t know if he was talking to the phone or to me.
14
I didn’t see Carver again that night and when the music stopped shortly afterwards, people seemed to fall down dead wherever they’d been standing. The floor was littered with passed-out bodies. Relieved, I took a long drink from Isabelle’s wine. I decided to climb the stairs now that they were clearer, and felt calmer with every step. The incessant beat of the music had been replaced by a ringing in my ears that felt vital and alive.
I reached the landing and turned right into a large, perfumed bathroom. There was the outline of
a girl sitting on the toilet. The seat was down and she was fully dressed with her head in her hands, looking every inch the pregnancy scare. I turned on the light and saw an abject Isabelle Rossiter. She was blacked out but breathing.
I picked her up and gently sat her down on the floor. She was so light she almost wasn’t there. I cleaned two abandoned glasses, filled them with water and sat with her quietly as she drifted in and out of consciousness and drank. My own vision had started to blur before I sat down but now everything fell out of focus, started to move in slow motion. I felt my perspective altering, falling out from under me.
The wine.
Thought I owed you one, for last time.
It felt like a strong sedative. Rohypnol or GHB. I hoped I hadn’t drunk enough to knock me out but it would blur the edges. When I floated up to my feet I think I was laughing.
Isabelle’s head was back in her hands. Her tousled, punk-rock hair and bare legs. She was barefoot, too, and the colourful varnish on her toenails made her look like a child. I’d bent to nudge her awake but saw that her scarf had fallen open.
I tilted her head backwards.
The scar on her neck was bigger than I expected. And darker, considering it had healed over a year ago. It was shaped almost like a Z. Two deep, definitive lines, joined by a lighter one in the middle. When she attempted suicide, she had stabbed herself in the neck, drawn the knife back on itself and made a second, deeper cut.
I drew together the frayed ends of her scarf and tied them lightly back around her neck, making sure to cover the scar. I covered her legs with a thick, dry towel, turned the light off and left her there.
Dizzily, I opened the first door I came to, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. It was a large room with a king-size at one end and some sleeping couples on the carpet. I tripped over them to the bed, where I heard a man snoring. I pushed him on to the floor and lowered myself down, shattered and shaking. The bassline of my pulse moved my whole body, and the room was spinning.
