Sirens

by Joseph Knox

  ‘Hello, Aidan.’

  ‘Zain …’

  ‘You look surprised, brother.’ I didn’t say anything. We made another sudden turn and I steadied myself on the wall. ‘You’ve met Billy and Alex …’

  I nodded. ‘How long have they been working for you?’

  ‘Not long. Not before we took our little trip to the Burnside that night.’ He smirked. ‘On my honour.’

  ‘What about Sheldon White?’

  ‘What about him? Picked up by your lot. They are your lot, aren’t they, Aidan?’

  There was no point lying now. ‘They were,’ I said. ‘When I first came to you.’

  ‘You spun me some balls about a sting …’

  ‘That was the sting.’ A wave of misery washed over me. ‘It was to flush out Laskey.’

  It had worked.

  Parrs had gone straight to Riggs when I called him. Compelled him to work against his partner. When they confronted Laskey, he was packing a bag. There was money he couldn’t explain. A passport with his picture and someone else’s name on it. Smithson was the nail in his coffin.

  He was finished.

  ‘Be interesting to hear what he knows,’ I said. I tried to steady myself on the floor of the van, to save my leg.

  Carver shrugged. ‘Be interesting to see how long he lives inside.’ He went on, serious for the first time, ‘Tell me about Isabelle.’ Everything was spinning now, white-hot sunspots in my eyes.

  ‘She was being abused,’ I said. ‘Her father’s Special Branch security detail. When she was younger, she tried to kill herself. When she was older, she ran away. He found her, though. Kept tabs. Got to her when she was alone …’

  ‘Was it him, then? Gave her the stuff?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he just put her in a bad enough place to use it. I guess she stole the brick to raise some cash, so she could run away further.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was me,’ I said. I swallowed. Looked down at my twisted, bloody leg for the first time. ‘I took her home, night before she died, and she confronted me. Thought I was working for Kernick, and I didn’t convince her otherwise. She must have sold the brick at the Burnside and kept a taste for herself. When Kernick visited her the next day, it must’ve felt like one more betrayal. One too many. A fix after all that probably seemed like a good idea.’ I stopped, thought about it. ‘She didn’t even put her clothes back on.’ The van drove wherever we were going, and we rocked slightly in the back. I tried to anticipate its movements. To stay upright.

  ‘Why me, though?’ said Carver. ‘Why’d she run to me?’

  Sarah Jane. Her affair with Rossiter. I had told her that I was going to pass that information on to Carver in the hope that she wouldn’t come back. In the hope that she’d steer clear of him for the rest of her life. But I had no intention of actually putting her in danger. He could work it out for himself or never know.

  ‘It was clever, really. Fairview was the one place that Kernick couldn’t get to her. She was safe there, until you moved her to that flat.’

  ‘And what about Cath? Sarah?’

  ‘I don’t know. White said if I didn’t get you to agree terms on Rubik’s by ten o’clock that night, it’d be like Cath never lived. I didn’t get to you in time, did I?’ I nodded at the two Burnsiders standing either side of me. ‘They’d know better than I would what happened to Catherine.’

  Neither of them spoke and Carver translated their vacant stares. ‘They say she left White of her own free will.’

  I swallowed. ‘It’d be nice to think so.’

  The van went over a bump and an incredible pain went through my leg. I thought about Joanna Greenlaw, crushed into that damp space for ten years before anyone found her.

  I tried to keep Carver talking. ‘You said White was arrested. What for?’

  ‘Grip’s murder,’ said Carver. ‘Apparently there was black and white paint all over his body when they found him. White’s fingerprints and DNA everywhere.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  Carver smiled. ‘S’pose so, yeah.’

  ‘And dumped outside my flat, so the police’d definitely find him …’

  ‘Is that so? I don’t even know where your flat is.’

  ‘How would you even get hold of White’s DNA?’ I looked at the two former Burnsiders. ‘Ask a stupid question …’ Carver didn’t move. ‘Doubly convenient that you’d been taken into custody at the time, so couldn’t have done it yourself. Who was your arresting officer, by the way?’

  ‘A Detective Laskey, I think,’ said Carver. ‘Yeah, convenient that. You don’t think I had something to do with it? My best friend?’

  Grip had lost his appetite for the game at the same time that Sheldon White had been released from prison. Carver had used one problem to solve the other, framing White for Grip’s murder.

  ‘I know you did,’ I said.

  The van came to a sudden stop and the engine was cut.

  I thought I was about to die, so I said what I thought. ‘Is that what happened to Joanna Greenlaw as well?’

  ‘Don’t know anything about it.’

  The door slid open and the two Burnsiders picked me up. Threw me out on to concrete. A shock of unexplainable pain went through me, what was left of my leg. Carver stepped out, stood over me.

  ‘I’ll give you this one for free, though. She saved your life.’

  ‘What?’ I said. I could feel the sweat spiking out from every pore. ‘Who did?’

  ‘Cath.’ Carver nodded back at the van. ‘The lads say White was all for killing you that night. Apparently, she offered to fuck the lot of them if he didn’t.’

  Billy leered at me over his shoulder.

  I tried to get up.

  I fell back down and Carver laughed at me.

  ‘See ya round, Aid.’

  He climbed back into the van. I heard the door slide closed and the engine start up. I didn’t dare look until they’d driven away.

  The street was familiar.

  The one I’d been living on for the last few months. I lay on the pavement and looked up at the sky. It was in motion. At first it went clockwise but it slowed. Stopped. Began spinning the other way, faster and faster. I closed my eyes, lay back and covered my face. I cried until my whole body hurt.

  VI

  Permanent

  1

  Afterwards I went back on to the night shift. They’d never trust me in the daylight again. I spent my time responding to 4 a.m. emergency calls, walking up and down dead escalators and trying not to think. I’d been good at that once. I could hardly believe it, a few months later, when I saw my breath in the air again. Saw November coming back around.

  Superintendent Parrs saved his job with the Laskey and Kernick arrests. My name had to be kept out of it, though, and I was reassigned, back on the graveyard shift, back on my very last chance. Shackled to my old partner, Detective Inspector Peter Sutcliffe. He took a sadistic pleasure in my low status. When he showed me the news story, the girl’s body that had been found, he actually smiled about it.

  Time had moved on. Slowly at first, then all of a sudden. Weeks and months went by and it all seemed less real. I spent most of that time in rehab. The break had been ugly. ‘Acrimonious,’ according to the first physio, and my leg would never be the same.

  I drank, but not like a mad man, not any more. Carver had unwittingly done me a favour. He had no reason to lie about Catherine saving my life and, somehow, that added value to it. She deserved better than me just throwing it away again. I’d been keeping my head down when the phone rang, almost a year later.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, surprised. ‘I can be there within the hour.’

  Although he’d made it sound urgent, the Bug was twenty-five minutes late. I saw him through the window, smoking a cigarette down to the filter. He walked into the café in a three-piece suit, looking just like one of the straights – with one crucial difference. The rigid, side-parted wig. It was turquoise.

  ‘My n
atural colour,’ he said, sitting down, ordering an impossible combination of two extravagant coffees. I laughed and he asked how I’d been.

  ‘Same as ever,’ I said.

  ‘You wanna watch that.’

  ‘I just wish I’d seen it sooner.’

  ‘A copper, a father and a rapist walk into a bar. Evening Alan, says the barman.’ The Bug studied the table. ‘Not that simple, is it?’

  ‘I just can’t stop thinking about it.’ He snorted and I looked at him. ‘We can’t all have two personalities.’

  He looked back at me, surprised but amused. ‘Course we can.’ He slid a slip of paper across the table, winked at me and got up to leave.

  ‘What’s this?’

  He shrugged. ‘Five grand seemed like a lot for a drive to London and back. Maybe you should take another?’ He walked out again. His painstakingly brewed designer coffee arrived a minute later.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said to the barista, taking a sip so he wouldn’t think it had all been in vain. On the slip of paper was an address: 28B West Square, London. I googled it. It was the first-floor flat in a Georgian townhouse. The first result told me that it was for sale. Idly, I called the estate agent and booked a viewing for that night. It would mean a long drive, there and back, but I had the time. I might even get lucky and be late for my shift with Sutty.

  2

  I arrived early, found a spot round the corner, and went to the square on foot. Four blocks of Georgian townhouses surrounding about an acre of idyllic leafy park. Children from a nearby school were sitting in a circle, taking a nature class in the middle. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I took a slow walk, the long way round, to number 28.

  The estate agent was standing outside, unmistakable in a suit, pink everyman tie and gravity-defying quiff. We shook hands and he introduced himself as Marcus. I could see that he was good at his job, even more so when he took in my own appearance at a glance. My black, lived-in suit. The shirt to match. The lines under my eyes that I couldn’t quite sleep off. The idea of me buying a flat on this street, in this city, must have looked laughable.

  He led me up a short flight of stone steps, telling me about the neighbours, the square’s history, the period features. I barely heard him. I was staring at the intercom buzzers for the building: 28B was Cat G.

  When I hesitated at the door, he put a friendly hand on my shoulder and rang the bell.

  ‘Just to let them know we’re here,’ he said, searching his jacket pocket for the key. He found it and let us in, into a fine, well-lit hallway lined with law books, looking like something straight out of the National Trust.

  ‘It’s Marcus from Harvey Street,’ he called out.

  I heard a movement upstairs.

  A happy, sing-song: ‘Be right down.’

  And then she was.

  Alive. Healthy. Glowing. I looked up. Past strap-sandals, skin, a light, cream dress. It was a miracle when my eyes met hers. She stopped on the staircase, took half a step back. As if my being there, my walking through the door, was a physical blow.

  Marcus saw this immediately, looked to her and then at his watch. ‘Not early, are we?’

  ‘No. No, it’s fine,’ she said, eyes on me.

  He looked between us. ‘You two know each other?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ I said. ‘It was Catherine Greenlaw, wasn’t it?’ Her eyes on mine. That same cornered look I’d seen in Isabelle Rossiter’s flat. The same one I’d seen in Rubik’s.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  I’d thought a lot about this moment, but now I didn’t know what to say. How to fill it. There was a silence and Marcus took the floor.

  ‘And this is Aidan, erm …’

  ‘Waits,’ she said. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Marcus. ‘Perhaps you want to give us the tour?’

  ‘I have some jobs on.’ She was already backing up the stairs. ‘Shout if you need me.’

  ‘Thanks, Cat,’ said Marcus.

  The tour didn’t take long. The house was set over four floors, not including the basement, and 28B was on the first. It was a two-bedroom flat. The fixtures, furnishings, tones and colours were minimal. Tasteful. Discreet.

  When we stepped into the kitchen, Catherine looked up. She’d been staring absent-mindedly out of a window. At a small garden set behind the house.

  ‘Perfect for the kiddies,’ said Marcus, following her gaze.

  I looked at Catherine. ‘Do you have children, Miss …?’

  She turned from the window. ‘Greenlaw,’ she said again. The same defiance I’d seen her speak to Sheldon White with. Thin winter light strained through the window, perfectly illuminating her features. She looked more like an art student than a drug dealer, and I wondered how I hadn’t seen it before. ‘Call me Cat,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  I waited. She didn’t go on.

  ‘Do you have children, Cat?’ In the silence, even Marcus’s welded-on smile started to slip.

  ‘No,’ she said finally. She gave us both a perfunctory smile, got up and left the room. Marcus guided me in the opposite direction and carried on the tour. We didn’t see her again, and before I knew it we were back at the front door. Marcus called something over his shoulder to her as we left and then we were on the street like it had never happened. He spoke to me and I nodded vaguely along, only thinking about getting rid of him.

  ‘Mr Waits,’ he said with a nod. When he shook my hand I walked to the edge of the square and he walked to his car. I heard him start up as I got to the corner. He followed the one-way road around the square, and out the other side.

  The street was quiet aside from the voices of children playing. I walked back to the house, up the steps, and reached out to press the intercom. The door opened a crack before I could. Catherine stared out at me.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  3

  She went through the hallway, up the stairs, and I followed. At first I thought she was playing for time. Running through a version of events she might give me. But in her automatic movements I was reminded of people I’d door-stepped with death notifications. She was in shock.

  When we reached the first floor she drifted into the flat. I saw a hard-shell suitcase standing by the door. It hadn’t been there before. She led the way into the kitchen, still on autopilot, and said the same thing that the newly bereaved often did:

  ‘Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee …’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ I said to her back.

  She turned. ‘I wanted you to.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘I wanted to be.’

  ‘Well, what happened?’

  I could see her trying to formulate a response. Something harmless. ‘When you left Rubik’s—’

  ‘What happened to the baby?’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’ She turned to the kettle. Busied herself with mugs. ‘There never was a baby.’ She had that mark of a great actor, putting just enough truth into each role to keep it convincing. Even when she switched persona mid-sentence, one didn’t make a lie out of the other. She turned back. Looked at me. ‘I was scared. The police were coming. All I could think of was getting out of that room. I found the pregnancy test in Isabelle’s flat.’ I closed my eyes. ‘Was she …?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Whose was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Neil says he never got that far with her. Odds are on Alan Kernick.’ Catherine frowned, unfamiliar with the name. ‘Her father’s security guard.’

  ‘The man from the video?’

  I nodded again.

  She began picking dead leaves from a potted plant. ‘Is that why she ran away from home?’

  ‘More or less. Where did you find the phone?’

  ‘In her flat, when we found her body, when I went to be sick.’ She paused. ‘I remembered that she sometimes kept stuff in the toilet cistern.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘Weed, blow – nothing hard. I just wanted to flush it so they w
ouldn’t find drugs with her body.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Money. Lots of money on top, some drugs. Underneath it all, there was a sealed plastic bag with her phone in. I knew there’d be messages, pictures of me, so I took it. The pregnancy test was in there, too.’ She stopped. Breathed. ‘Once I got out, I looked at the phone and found the video. I wanted to tell you, explain it that day we were in Rubik’s. Then everything with Sheldon White happened. I had to improvise. Was it any use?’

  I ignored her. ‘Joanna Greenlaw was your mother.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not really. She got rid of me when I was a baby. I grew up in care.’ She looked at me, through me. ‘You wouldn’t understand what that’s like, especially for a girl. You get good at acting. Faking things. You live the lies so long that they get twisted into memories. You start believing them.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘The law changed at some point. I was given the right to find her. I hadn’t thought much about it until then, but something just broke in me when I read she’d gone missing. I didn’t go at Zain for revenge. Something else pulled me there. And he liked me.’ She laughed. ‘He thought I was good. I worked well in the Franchise. I think I reminded him of Mum.’ She paused. ‘I knew she had to be dead, but it got so important for me to work out where she was. Physically, I mean …’

  I waited.

  She was turned fully away from me now. ‘My only idea was to fuck him. Betray him. Tell him I was going to the police, just to see what he’d do. Just so I’d know for sure what he did to Mum. I used to dream of his hand round my throat and actually wake up happy. Because at least I’d know.’

  ‘But you changed your mind?’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t. Zain and Grip used to troubleshoot. Take small amounts of their cooks to see how strong they were.’

  ‘You got the idea to spike them.’

  ‘Amazing what you can find online,’ she said. ‘Cyanide pills, strychnine, banned pesticides …’

  I thought about poor Isabelle. ‘Is that what went into it?’