by Joseph Knox
Time moved fast, back and forth, and it might have been an hour or a few minutes. The door opened hard. I saw people on the floor roll away from the light. I pretended to be asleep when the door closed.
It was dark again.
I heard the soft, searching footsteps of a girl, padding across the room towards the bed. She lay down beside me and drew herself closer. She smelled of cigarettes and fresh air, but I could feel the sweat through her skirt.
‘Hello again,’ said Catherine, into my ear.
The room carouselled and her voice felt like a beacon. Our fingers linked together in the darkness, she took my hand and guided it slowly up her thighs. She was warm between the legs, and I realized she had no underwear on. ‘Still looking for trouble?’ She laughed, a wonderful sound, and her shallow breaths got me hard. She unbuttoned my trousers and I felt her hand moving on me. Even at the time it felt more like a memory. Or the memory of something someone else had told me. I came after a few minutes and she peppered my face and neck with light, breathy kisses.
I thought I heard her say Zain.
Lying back, exhausted, I became conscious of heavy breathing. I tried to exhale open-mouthed to make it quieter but it had no effect. The breathing was coming from someone in the darkness at the far side of the room. I passed out into a solid, dreamless sleep.
I opened my eyes, sat up suddenly and saw strained daylight coming through the curtains. The room spun. Experience told me I’d be OK as long as it went clockwise. When I rolled over I saw the bed was empty. Catherine had gone. I could still smell her on the pillow. I got up unsteadily and left the room. There were sounds of life in the house but no one on the landing or stairs. I descended and, pausing in the deserted hallway, heard muffled voices behind a closed door.
‘Sheldon White?’ It was one of the girls talking. I didn’t recognize the name but heard something familiar in the tone of voice.
It was fear.
I could have opened that door and joined the owners of those muffled voices, but at the time I didn’t think a one-night stand mattered. At the time, I didn’t think. I opened the front door, glad to have seen no one, and walked back out into November.
Squinting into the light, I saw what looked like a large smear of bird shit on Carver’s doorstep. Black on white. It was still wet when I stepped over it.
15
‘The state of you,’ said Parrs, motioning me to a chair. It was Monday morning. His Scottish accent still stood out, but everything else about him blended into the background. He was a grey man in almost every respect. His hair and clothes had faded prematurely when he was promoted to Superintendent. They suited him, hinted at the thoughtful, internal life he seemed to lead. We were sitting in a miserable greasy spoon off Oxford Road. It wouldn’t do for me to be seen in headquarters.
I pushed a newspaper across the table.
Parrs opened it in the middle and read.
Minutes went by as he sat, frowning into my report.
The edited highlights.
I had left out my own drug use and one-night stand, and I’d tried to downplay Isabelle’s fall, too. If anyone had known, if anyone had asked, I would have said it was to protect her. In truth, I wasn’t sure why I kept it to myself. Perhaps I didn’t trust Superintendent Parrs. Didn’t trust David Rossiter, MP.
Even with a weekend between me and the last party, I still felt wired. The buzzing light bulbs and humming oven fan sounded like synths. Parrs stopped reading and looked at me over the newspaper. I realized I’d been tapping my foot against the chair leg ever since I sat down, and stopped. His index finger was pressing hard into the page, saving his place. He reread a line.
‘What’d you make of Carver?’ he said, like it was the third time of asking.
‘Big character. Definitely has friends on the force. He was all ears when I told him about the ghost squad.’
‘He’ll follow up?’
‘If his man sees Wright, Redgrave and Tillman leave headquarters a few times, I think we’ll be good.’
‘Who’s living at Fairview?’
I glanced over my shoulder at the door. We were the only customers.
‘Carver and Grip, definitely,’ I said. ‘The girls, Catherine, Sarah Jane and Isabelle, I think. Not the barman.’
‘And Friday night?’
‘Same story as before. There’s nothing too evil happening there, but a lot of bad vibes. An atmosphere.’
‘All those stories in the press about their boss’s ex-girlfriend going missing.’ Parrs smiled, gleeful at the thought. ‘You pushed Carver on the subject of Joanna Greenlaw?’
‘I think it hit a nerve. He pushed back.’
‘Oh?’
‘Didn’t go the way you’d think, though. He said he hadn’t read it but was glad to see something happening. Said Joanna Greenlaw shouldn’t have been forgotten about for so long.’
‘What do you think?’
‘He said it like he meant it, but a bit of performance goes along with everything he does.’
‘Any indication he knew more?’
‘No,’ I said, wondering if the Superintendent had told me everything. ‘He said that some days he still expects her to walk through the door at Fairview. As far as he’s concerned, she went missing ten years ago. The appeal hit a nerve but …’ I tailed off.
‘You think there’s something else?’
‘Maybe Carver’s always so well informed, but I got the feeling I’d been noticed because of heightened security.’
‘Hm,’ said Parrs.
‘I heard mention of a Sheldon White, and—’
His eyes darted up at me. ‘Who said that name?’
‘One of the girls at Fairview.’
He looked at me. Closed the newspaper with my report in it. When he spoke again, his voice was lower than usual.
‘Sheldon White’s the ghost of Christmas past, son. A mover and shaker for the Burnsiders back in the day. He just got home from a seven-year stretch.’
‘Right.’
His eyes sparkled. ‘He was also investigated in connection with the disappearance of Joanna Greenlaw.’ He snorted to himself. ‘If they’re talking about Sheldon White, they must be rattled.’
‘Why am I only hearing about this now?’
He’d almost forgotten I was there. ‘I want you focused on Carver.’
‘You can’t keep sending me over there with half the story.’
He glared at me. ‘I can do anything I want with you, son. If you feel like backing out, I’ll send you down with them.’ He reopened the newspaper, referred to my notes. ‘Isabelle Rossiter. Tell me about her.’
I realized I was tapping my foot again and stopped.
‘Mixed-up kid, but no more than most seventeen-year-olds.’
‘Seventeen,’ said Parrs, rubbing his face. ‘No clue what she’s doing there?’
‘Carver keeps a lot of young girls around. I assume she’ll join the others and start collecting cash from bars. She looks the part.’
‘Looks can be deceiving, son. She seem stable?’
‘More than I was at her age.’
‘That doesn’t fill me with confidence.’
‘I saw the scar on her neck. Whatever happened there, it was no cry for help.’
‘Hm,’ said Parrs, not really interested. ‘When are you going back?’ He was hungry for more. He’d have driven me over to Fairview there and then.
‘Carver invited me to the next party.’
‘Ah.’ Parrs smiled. ‘The shit Friday agreement.’
When Parrs smiled, the lines around his eyes deepened, like gills on a shark.
‘I’ll hear then what his man makes of our ghost squad.’
He nodded, then considered me for a moment. ‘Don’t get too carried away with this Isabelle Rossiter shite. Her ladyship, Chief Superintendent Chase, can stick her tits in all she likes, but I’ll not have some slut jeopardizing my investigation. Your focus remains absolutely on the Franchise.’
This Isabelle Rossiter shite. ‘Sir,’ I said.
‘And tell me something. Honestly now.’
I held eye contact and nodded.
‘Are you using, son?’
I stopped tapping my foot again.
‘No,’ I said.
I got up and left before they even took our order.
16
I made sure the cubicle was locked and laid a line on the back of my hand. It was Wednesday night. I had made the same pub-crawl tour of Franchise places as the previous week, making a note of who I saw and where. I’d been drinking in The Basement, a small, subterranean bar with sticky floors and no natural light.
When I left the Gents’, the back of my throat was burning and everything smelled of speed. Things seemed to move faster but that might have been the shock of seeing Sarah Jane. Stark red hair, the devastating cut of her dress. She was working tonight. I had never seen her in Rubik’s, but she seemed to collect from these smaller, satellite bars.
‘Hi,’ I said, as she turned from the barman. She gave me something less than a look and strode out of the room towards the stairs and street-level. She would probably have blanked me either way, but I wondered if Carver had shared the story I’d told him.
The ghost squad.
Wright, Redgrave and Tillman had been entering and exiting police headquarters on cue. Tipped off, a corrupt officer would have no choice but to wait, to watch, and corroborate what I had said so far. I wouldn’t know for sure until Friday. The next party. If I had gained their trust, or something close, that would be my chance to lay groundwork for the sting.
It was an exciting time and, although I didn’t have the Superintendent’s zeal for the Franchise, I was starting to see the appeal of the operation. Joanna Greenlaw’s disappearance ten years ago. Zain Carver’s pseudo-empire. His bars and his girls. His sirens. Isabelle Rossiter, seduced by it all. And now the added layer of this Sheldon White, this grudge, another blast from the past.
If it had worked, the mark would have been in custody a week later and I would have gone back to my old life, muddied name and all. Zain Carver would have been arrested, his bars shut and his girls dispersed. Who knows what Isabelle might have done.
I keep going back to that moment. The last before I lost control. If it had worked, I might have saved myself a lot of trouble, a lot of pain. I might even have saved some lives while I was at it.
I drank a beer for my throat. The speed made me feel omnipresent and untouchable. I was everywhere, setting a hundred different moving parts in motion. The people were just things seen from a distance. The unblinking, lit windows on a tower block.
17
I spent the next couple of days apart from the Franchise. Bereft of it. It had begun to feel like a force, pulling me towards Fairview. When Friday came and I went back up the path to the Carver house, it was quickly. I walked straight past the try-hards and onlookers attracted to the throb of bass. I didn’t know what I was walking into. It could have gone either way.
Sarah Jane opened the door and stood aside without looking directly at me. The hallway over her bare shoulder was heat and people and life. Strobe lights flashed and vanished in time with bass drops in the music. I stepped inside and she closed the door on a couple of people coming up behind me.
‘Hi again,’ I said, over the roar.
She cut me off. ‘He wants to see you.’
I picked out Catherine in the crowd behind her. Long chestnut hair, spilling out against the wall. I thought of our night together, I couldn’t believe it was real. She was pressed against the left side of the corridor, talking to a man who had his back to me. The lights made her ultra-visible one second and gone again the next. When she saw me her eyes widened.
‘Hey,’ said Sarah Jane, snapping her fingers in my face.
‘Lead the way.’
It was difficult to follow her through the crowd. Too many people in too little space. They parted ways for Sarah Jane like she was royalty, surging back together in her wake. The strobe slowed everything down, making the walk seem like a series of snapshots. I glanced over my shoulder for Catherine. The man was still talking to her, but she was looking at me. Communicating something.
‘Watch where yer goin’,’ said Grip, connecting hard with my shoulder. I looked at him. He flicked my forehead and smiled. His bottom lip split open when he did, and a drop of blood ran down on to his chin. He flicked my forehead. I couldn’t see Sarah Jane and pushed past him towards the kitchen. I got there in time to see her open the door and walk through it without checking I was still behind her. I was sweating from the heat of the crowd, she was completely untouched by it.
Isabelle Rossiter was standing by the door on her own. She wore the same frayed scarf, same punkish style as before, and looked down at her faded, stamped-on Doc Martens. When she saw me following Sarah Jane, she called out over the music:
‘You said you didn’t know her.’
I went past her into the kitchen and closed the door. The light was dim, steady, and the music was muffled. Zain Carver was where I’d left him a week before. Leaning against a work surface, scrolling through the messages on his phone. He had a bottle of expensive-looking liquor and two glasses at his side. He finished reading a message and then looked up at Sarah Jane.
‘Give us a minute, sweetheart.’
He went back to his phone. She gave him a go-fuck-yourself smile and turned on her heel, closing the door behind her.
‘See,’ he said. ‘Alive and kicking.’
‘Does she know?’
‘Not from me. Why?’
‘I thought I got a frosty response.’
‘You’re doing all right then. That’s a few degrees higher than her usual temperature.’ I waited while he typed out a message.
‘Hennessy?’ he said finally, nodding at the liquor.
‘Sure.’
He set down his phone, broke the seal on the bottle, poured two large measures and handed me one. The glass was bespoke, sitting comfortably in the palm of my hand.
He held his up in a toast. ‘To new friends.’ We both smiled and touched glasses. Cognac. I had never knowingly drunk the brand before and it was beautiful. I felt that familiar effect of a good drink, relighting a fire inside me that I didn’t know had gone out.
Carver looked at me. ‘Wright, Redgrave and Tillman. All seen going in and out of police HQ this week.’
‘What’s your man make of it?’
‘Enough to get you back in this room, Aid. He made some discreet enquiries.’ He twisted the words in an impression of the person who’d said them. It wasn’t familiar. ‘He’s friendly with a girl in admin on the sixth floor there. Yer men’ve got a room blocked out, permanently –
6.21A. The girl couldn’t see who’d authorized it, but it was for something called the Parks Road Monument Committee.’
‘Three serious crime detectives, picking out a war memorial …’
‘I know.’ Carver smiled. ‘Take at least five of the fuckers. I didn’t give my man the full story, but he saw it himself. Put it together and came back talking ghost squad, too.’
‘He worried?’
Carver picked up his phone, which had been vibrating with regular messages as we spoke, and started scrolling again. The message to me was that my role in this was over.
‘Said I’d do right by ya, so name a price. The Hennessy’s yours, by the way.’
‘In that case …’ I picked up the bottle, examined it and poured us both robust refills. ‘Ten?’
‘Nowhere near, pal. Try again.’
I took a drink. Glowed. ‘Seven.’
‘Five it is.’ Carver smiled. ‘Speak to Grip.’
‘I get the feeling he doesn’t like me.’
‘Doesn’t like anyone. That important to you?’
‘If he makes life difficult.’
‘He won’t,’ said Carver, scrolling through his phone. ‘He knows all about it.’ I waited a minute while he typed out another message.
‘So what’s next?’
He frowned. ‘You don’t wanna know.’ I was sure that this dismissive attitude was designed to prompt me further. To try and double my money with more information.
The pitch. ‘I might have more to say.’
‘Such as.’
‘Some of the quirks of a ghost squad. Worth more than five.’
‘On blast, then.’
‘Why would they do something like this on-site at headquarters?’ Carver shrugged. ‘Ready access to physical files,’ I said.
‘Nothing’s physical, these days.’
‘Something’s keeping them in that building. Specifically, that room. To the point that no one else is allowed in there. They can’t be using police HQ data networks or shared drives. Too obvious, too visible, too easily accessed.’
‘So?’
‘In all likelihood, anything and everything they’ve got on you, me and your man is in that room. Probably on one segregated hard drive.’ Carver had put his phone down again now, full attention. ‘Wipe it and they’ve got nothing.’
‘How?’
‘I watched the place for two weeks before I came to you. Wright, Redgrave and Tillman never went in on a Monday. Your man was watching last week. He see them go in then?’
He thought. ‘Not Monday.’
‘Your man just needs to get into that room.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘They’re hiding in plain sight. We know where it is and when it’s empty. They can’t install security measures beyond a locked door because that would draw attention to it. And anyway, no one in their right mind would be interested in the – what? Parks Road Monument Committee, and on the sixth floor, no less.’ I could see that he was interested. ‘Your man could get to the room this Monday.’
‘Hm.’
‘Maybe he goes straight in. Maybe he leaves it for the following week.’
Carver looked at me. ‘Maybe that is worth more than five.’
We spoke a little more and finished our drinks. Carver was non-committal but lit up. When he sent me back out into the party, he insisted I take the Hennessy with me, and I found that I was suddenly popular. Grip shunted over. He was drenched with sweat and moved uncomfortably. He held a carrier bag and handed it over with a grunt. When I nodded, he lumbered back into the crowd. There was money in the bag. Five evenly sized wads of fifty-pound notes. With effort, I managed to get them inside my jacket pocket.
