Sirens

by Joseph Knox

  I searched for Isabelle. I wondered if there was something between her and Sarah Jane. I had heard the disappointment in her voice when she saw us together. The Superintendent’s lack of interest in her scared me. This Isabelle Rossiter shite. Her own father hadn’t even noticed she was gone for a month. Don’t let her disappear, I thought.

  ‘Celebrating?’ said Catherine, nodding at the bottle.

  ‘Every day.’ I handed it to her and she gave me a smile. The first real one I’d seen in some time. It went all the way to her eyes, and had no place in that building. No place between the two of us, really. She took a drink, winced and handed it back.

  ‘Bit rich for me.’

  I thought of the cash in my pocket. ‘If you like ’em poor, I might be the man for you.’

  She smiled again. ‘Might you?’

  ‘Well, I could at least waste some of your time.’

  ‘Or accidentally knock my drink over …’

  ‘I’m still sorry about that.’

  ‘Don’t be. It got me away from Neil.’

  ‘Neil?’

  ‘Bar manager at Rubik’s – thinks he owns me. He shower-

  curtains round all the girls …’

  ‘Shower-curtains?’

  ‘Clings.’

  ‘The guy with the designer stubble?’

  ‘That’s him, looks like he’s been up all night, trying to solve a murder or something.’ I laughed. Neil. So Glen Smithson, acquitted date rapist, was using another name. Good to know. ‘Most men don’t dare talk to us,’ she said.

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘Are you? What really made you knock my drink over, Aidan?’

  ‘I wanted to meet you.’

  ‘Not meet Zain?’

  ‘You first,’ I said. I realized that I meant it.

  She put her hand on my chest and looked me in the eyes. ‘Waste some of my time, then …’ She said it like a dare.

  ‘I’ll make you wonder where your life went.’ We drank a little more. Moved backwards and forwards with the crowd, until, without even noticing it, we were upstairs again. When I kissed her I felt like everything might change. My personality, my body. My life. When we stepped apart I was still myself. It was bearable, though, for the moment. She was there with me. She laughed and hit me in the chest when she saw the way I was looking at her. Then we kissed again.

  I left about an hour later. I closed the front door behind me and felt something wet on my fingers. I looked. Black on white, like the smear of bird shit I’d seen on the doorstep a week before. There were no birds around and I put my fingers to my nose. It smelled like paint. I walked down the path, wiping my hand on a leaf as I went.

  When I got back to the northern quarter, gone midnight, everything was pleasantly blurred. I drank some water, took two painkillers and sat down to sleep. I saw I had a new text message. It was from a number I didn’t recognize and simply said:

  Zain knows.

  18

  The next morning I got up early. Showering, I saw the smear of black and white paint, dried on to my fingers. I thought about the bird shit I’d stepped over on Carver’s doorstep, a week before. Then I thought about Joanna Greenlaw’s disappearance.

  There had been black and white paint daubed all over her doorstep.

  I picked up the phone. I needed to speak to an expert and there was only one I knew of. I took a deep breath and dialled Sutty’s number. I hadn’t seen him since we arrested the woman in the burka. As far as he knew, I’d stolen drugs from evidence the next day and been suspended. If he was still working the night shift, I’d probably find him in bed, sleeping it off.

  He answered with a gurgle. ‘Yurgh.’

  ‘Sutty.’

  ‘Yurgh.’

  ‘It’s Waits.’

  ‘Waits?’ That woke him up. ‘The fuck do you want?’

  ‘I need some help …’

  ‘More than I can give ya, son. You’ve got some bloody cheek calling me, after what you pulled.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We shouldn’t even be talking. If yer charges make it to court, I’ll be testifyin’ against ya. And gladly.’

  ‘I know. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t urgent—’

  ‘Ah’ve got no fuckin’ money and ah’ve got no fuckin’ time, so—’

  ‘It’s not about money. It’s about gang tags.’ He didn’t say anything but I knew that would intrigue him. ‘You’re the only person who knows this stuff inside out.’

  ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘Private work. Security.’

  ‘Paid?’

  ‘Hundred quid for an hour’s work.’ He snorted. ‘Two hundred – that’s as high as I can go.’

  I heard him rolling his tongue around his mouth, mulling it over. ‘Where?’

  ‘Town? I could meet you at The Temple?’ A converted subterranean public toilet, The Temple was owned by the frontman of a famous local band. He kept it suitably dingy and the prices reasonable. It was Sutty’s favourite bar.

  ‘Bring the money,’ he said, and hung up.

  19

  I descended into The Temple, felt my eyes adjusting to the darkness. There was never much space but it had the best jukebox in town. Today it was playing Exile on Main Street. Sutty was sitting by the bar with a pint of Guinness. He necked it when he saw me and slammed down the glass.

  ‘Two more,’ he said to the barmaid. ‘He’s payin’.’ I sat down, paid for the drinks and took a sip.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Cash,’ he said, scratching himself all over. I handed it to him. I had taken it from the five grand that Carver had given me. Four fifty-pound notes.

  Sutty counted it twice. ‘Right, come on then …’

  ‘Joanna Greenlaw,’ I said.

  ‘What kinda private security’s that?’

  ‘It’s background. When they went to the house, there was something on the doorstep.’

  ‘Black and white paint.’ He sniffed. ‘Old Burnsider tag.’

  ‘So—’

  ‘So fuck-all, anyone could’ve put it there. At the time they looked into it but a bit o’ paint’s not much to go on.’

  ‘What do you know about them?’

  ‘Everythin’.’ He shrugged. ‘Burnside Estate was an industrial complex. Couple of miles north, outta town, along the Irwell.’ He took a drink and I saw him warming to his subject. ‘Whole place backed on to the river so factories could dispatch an’ receive goods by boat. All shut down when the industry went abroad in the eighties. Became the shithole we know today.’

  ‘I’ve never been.’

  ‘I’ll save yer the journey. Abandoned warehouses. Junkies, slags, homeless people.’

  ‘What about the Burnsiders?’

  ‘Not much left of ’em. They eke out a livin’ on tar.’

  ‘Tar?’

  ‘Yurgh. Made from cookin’ fentanyl. Hundred times stronger than morphine. Cheap to make, cheap to get.’ He smiled. ‘Bone-shakin’ highs, but a strong risk of infection. Amputation. Et cetera.’

  ‘And the paint—’

  ‘They don’t even use it any more. It was just a turf thing, it marked their property. These days, they haven’t really got any.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  He eyed me. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘The person I’m working for’s been finding black and white paint on his doorstep. It rang a bell.’ I paused. ‘And I thought I could get him to cough up some cash for you. As an apology …’

  He sniffed. ‘Black and white paint on his doorstep’s more likely to be a zebra crossin’ than the Burnsiders. They’re finished. In their box and not coming back out.’

  ‘What put them there?’

  ‘Zain Carver. Started playin’ with the big boys about ten years ago. It never got too bloody, but even the junkies could see. Eight’s purer than tar, and reasonably priced. Plus you won’t get bladed for late payment. He gentrified the trade, so to speak. They’re obsolete. So’s tha
t tag.’

  I took a swig of Guinness. Thought about it. The fact that the tag was obsolete didn’t count out its relevance. Especially if someone was using it to hark back to the glory days when it had been more widely used. Its use now didn’t feel gang-related, though. There had been no corresponding threats or violence that I knew of. It felt personal. Rooted in the disappearance of Joanna Greenlaw.

  ‘While we’re sharin’,’ said Sutty, pulling an envelope from his pocket. ‘This arrived at the station for ya. ’Fraid I had to open it …’ I accepted the envelope. Pulled a sheet of paper from it. The paper had lost its crispness. Been unfolded, read and passed around a few times. I looked at the signature. Tried to swallow my surprise. Then I refolded the letter and put the envelope in my pocket.

  ‘Funny that.’ Sutty sniffed. Smiled. ‘You told me you grew up in care.’

  I changed the subject. ‘Does the name Sheldon White mean anything to you?’

  He looked at me again. ‘Course, but, I mean, he’s inside …’

  ‘He got out recently.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ He thought about it. ‘Forget what I just said, then. That might change things for the Burnsiders.’

  20

  I went home. Hung up my jacket. The letter was still in the pocket but I didn’t open it again.

  The first strike against me was my history. Who I was and where I was born. I enjoyed getting older because every second was like distance travelled away from my childhood. Or so I thought. Later, when Parrs got his hooks into me, I saw how inescapable it really was. The set-up to some fucking joke that pays off in the third act.

  Our mother didn’t want us.

  I never told anyone when it might have changed things, and over the years I forgot it myself. I don’t remember much about being young now. Some people can talk in forensic detail about their childhood, or at least reel off the odd anecdote. For me, it feels like a lifetime ago, and some days I wish it were further. But when you forget certain things, you’re letting other people down as well as yourself. That fading smile on an old friend’s face when they see you’ve forgotten some shared story.

  I’ve started forgetting about my little sister.

  I have a clear picture of her in my head, but I don’t know how accurate it is. In it, she’s a chubby, scruffy toddler. The scuffs on her dress, her one-up, one-down knee socks speak to her character. Adventurous and knockabout. Wide-eyed and brave. Quiet for her age, though. A thinker. An unusually hot forehead. She wouldn’t even look up when I warmed my hands on it, just carried on with whatever she was pulling apart or putting back together. I remember her curls, her small, concentrating frown.

  And I remember the way she’d flinch when grown-ups at the home moved too quickly around her. I’ll remember that and then walk into doors. Stop dead in the middle of roads. I’ll be standing in the shower, not thinking of anything, and suddenly be sitting down with my face in my hands. I couldn’t look at the letter. It was the first strike against me. My history. Who I was and where I was born.

  21

  I put in a call to Superintendent Parrs.

  ‘We’re on.’

  ‘Monday?’

  ‘Room 6.21A. His man’ll most likely check it out this week, with a view to breaking in Monday next, if it’s clear.’

  ‘I’ll make sure it is. Good work, son. Anything else to report?’

  I thought of Sarah Jane’s icy disdain. Isabelle’s disapproval. Her disappearance from the party. Grip’s bloody smile and Catherine’s real one. I felt like everything might change. I thought of my conversation with Sutty. The paint. I thought of the money. Five grand in cash. More than I’d ever had to my name. I had taken it to the lock-up where the few things from my old life were in storage. Just until the job was done. I thought of the message I’d received from an anonymous number.

  Zain knows.

  ‘There’s nothing else,’ I said.

  II

  Substance

  1

  Saturday. The cubicle was bathed in ultraviolet light. City-centre bars go in for that because it means users can’t see the veins in their arms to shoot up with. Rubik’s was no exception. Sometimes the tweakers would find a vein out in the street, mark the spot with a biro, then go into ultraviolet-lit toilets and stick a needle straight in it. When they drifted out, marble-eyed, the cross-hairs on their arms looked like small, bloody kisses on a birthday card.

  I made sure the door was locked and stood on the toilet seat. Using a screwdriver I’d brought with me, I carefully pulled out the screws surrounding the light fitting and took it down from the ceiling. I had been watching Smithson, the barman, for weeks. Despite there being a dedicated cleaning team, he spent a lot of time in these toilets. I reached my arm into a small hole and felt around.

  Bags.

  The first one I pulled down was coke. There were three different varieties of pills and then a zippy containing tiny, shoot-ready packs of Eight. I replaced almost all of the drugs, and the fixture, and got down off the toilet.

  I laid a line of coke on to the back of my hand. The whole arm trembled. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, tensing everything, trying to get my body back under control. When I looked down again I found myself focusing on some graffiti written above the cistern.

  Forget the night ahead, it said.

  I stared at that graffiti a full minute then carefully poured the coke back into the clear plastic bag it had come from.

  I flushed the toilet, unlocked the door and left.

  The bar was waking up. Out of its last tragic hour and into a happy one. The day-timers’ ranks were swelling with people getting off work, meeting friends. I saw Catherine at the bar ordering her usual tall, neat vodka. Her chestnut hair was loose over her shoulders. Casually raising the heart rate of every man in the room.

  Isabelle Rossiter was with her.

  It was the first time I’d seen them together. I wondered if Catherine was the friend who brought her into the Franchise. I hoped that wasn’t the case. It suddenly struck me that I was working against Catherine, and probably to put her in prison. I caught my reflection in my beer and pushed it away. Isabelle fingered her neckline and flirted shyly with the barrel-chested bar manager. I thought of the article I’d read about him.

  SMITHSON ACQUITTED.

  The bar manager said something that caused Catherine to look up. An argument broke out between them. At one point Catherine even stood in front of Isabelle.

  I heard her say: ‘No more.’

  In the end, Isabelle calmed her down, seeming to come to some kind of arrangement with the man. Catherine left them to it, walked off to a corner table. The bar manager said something to the girl working with him, walked round the bar and out the front door. Isabelle waited a minute, then followed. There were men at tables staring so hard that she almost dragged their eyes out with her. I watched Catherine, waiting to see if she’d follow, but she didn’t.

  The barmaid was serving three people at once when I went over. She was a cheerful blonde Australian. A student, I thought.

  ‘Quadruple vodka, please.’

  ‘Try something legal.’

  ‘She got one,’ I said, pointing to Catherine in the corner. The barmaid glanced over, then smiled at me.

  ‘She’s special, hun. You’re not.’

  ‘Jameson’s and soda, then.’ I tipped her for the zinger, took a sip and turned from the bar. Walking through Catherine’s sight line, I sat at the next table with my back to her. I was wondering what to do next when I heard a chair scrape behind me, then heels on the hardwood floor. My left hand started trembling again and I wished I’d just taken something.

  ‘Aidan,’ said Catherine. I looked up. Past black suede heels, a leather pencil skirt and a low-cut top. Past the chestnut hair, loose over her shoulders. This girl I’d only known a few weeks. It was a miracle when my eyes met hers.

  ‘Cath.’

  She smiled. ‘Still looking for that black eye, I see.’

&
nbsp; ‘Getting closer every day, though, aren’t I? Join me?’

  She got her drink from the other table.

  ‘So who’s in the running?’ she said, sitting down opposite.

  ‘There was a moment where I thought Carver might hit me, but it passed.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll come back around.’ I could tell she was still annoyed by whatever had happened between Isabelle and the barman, and our conversation felt terse for it. ‘What do you think of him, anyway?’

  ‘Zain? Throws a good party.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I haven’t spent much time with the man.’

  ‘He spoke to you. It’s more than most people get, believe me …’

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  She didn’t answer. Didn’t let me change the subject. ‘Why are you always hanging round, Aid?’ We’d slept together twice and she was realizing she knew nothing about me.

  ‘I’m looking for a job. It’s what I was talking to Zain about on Friday.’

  ‘You want to be one of his girls?’

  ‘Is that how you think of yourself?’

  ‘I don’t think of myself that much.’ She paused. ‘But I don’t belong to anyone, if you’re asking.’

  ‘Not even people who pay you?’

  ‘Not even people who fuck me.’

  Off to my right, the barmaid dropped a tray of glasses. They smashed and half the tables started cheering.

  ‘I hate it when people do that,’ I said.

  ‘Drop glasses?’

  ‘Draw attention to a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake?’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about—’

  ‘No.’ She silenced me with a squeeze of the hand. ‘I gave you the chance to and you talked about something else. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.’ She gathered her things and got to her feet. ‘Goodnight, Aidan.’ Girls usually give me their ration-book smiles, like they’re saving something for someone else, for later, but Catherine was different.