MONOLITH

by Shaun Hutson

  ‘I thought he lived in Prague.’

  ‘He did. And Moscow and Warsaw. I think he’s still got places there now as well as his homes here in England and the States. And he’s got a private yacht that makes the Queen Elizabeth look like a rowing boat.’

  Hadley drank some tea then nodded towards the handbag that Jess had left lying on the table top.

  ‘Can I have a look at the pictures you took while you were inside?’ he asked.

  She nodded and reached inside for the SD790 handing it to Hadley who began scrolling through the shots before him on the small screen. He eyed the shots of the crimson mess on the stretcher indifferently.

  ‘I wonder what happened?’ he mused.

  Jess could only shrug.

  ‘We won’t know for sure until they release some kind of statement or the name of the poor sods that died,’ she offered.

  ‘You could check the nearest hospital to here, see what they say.’

  ‘Pretend to be a relative you mean.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that unless I had the names of the men who were killed could I?’ she reminded him.

  Hadley nodded and drained what was left in his mug then pointed at Jess’s half-drunk beverage.

  ‘Want another one?’ he enquired.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I’d better go home.’

  ‘Someone waiting for you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, it’s just little old me,’ she told him.

  ‘What is wrong with the male population of this city? You should be married by now. Up to your ears in screaming kids and shitty nappies.’

  ‘Like you?’

  Hadley raised his eyebrows.

  There was a long silence between them and then Jess broke it, leaning forward slightly.

  ‘Do you ever hear from your ex?’ she asked. ‘The first one or the second one.’ She smiled.

  ‘No.’ He said it sharply and with an air of finality. ‘I don’t want to either.’

  ‘How long has it been now?’

  ‘We didn’t come in here to talk about my fucking ex did we? Either of them.’

  ‘Three years since your last divorce, isn’t it?’

  ‘What did I just say?’ he challenged. ‘Drop it will you, Jess.’

  ‘I was only asking.’

  ‘And what happened to that guy you were in love with? What was his name? Jason or something wasn’t it?’

  Jess got to her feet.

  ‘I really have got to go,’ she said, reaching for her handbag. ‘Thanks for the tea and sympathy, Alex. I’ll see you around.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said, flatly.

  ‘You didn’t. I just have to go. Things to do, you know.’

  He looked at her evenly for a moment as she pulled her handbag onto her shoulder and looked back at him with something like sadness in her eyes. The moment passed.

  ‘You’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you?’ he enquired.

  She nodded.

  ‘In case you want anything,’ he added. ‘Any help.’

  ‘And you’d better go and get your milk...” Jess told him.

  ‘Somewhere will be open, even at this time of night,’ he said as she turned. ‘Somewhere always is. They cater for people like me who want things.’

  ‘And what do you want besides milk, Alex?’ Jess said, heading towards the café exit.

  ‘I want my fucking life back,’ he said, quietly. ‘But that’s never going to happen is it?’

  She was gone by the time he looked up again.

  ELEVEN

  Despite the fact that it was late by the time Jess got home she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. The journey to the Crystal Tower and the meeting with Hadley had set her adrenalin flowing and she knew that going to bed as soon as she got through the front door would be a futile exercise.

  She hadn’t been sleeping too well for the last couple of weeks as it was so, as she let herself in to her small flat just off Clerkenwell Road, she decided it would be more sensible to simply sit up watching TV or reading until she felt drowsy enough to retreat to the bedroom.

  She slipped off her coat and hung it on the rack just inside the door before ducking into the small living room where she flicked on the TV and found Sky News. While the newsreader droned on in the background, Jess put some milk in a mug and stuck it in the microwave. Warm milk supposedly aided sleep, didn’t it? Perhaps it might have the desired effect. She turned towards the television screen as the microwave whirred loudly on one of the worktops. Jess flicked channels looking for even the slightest mention of the accident at the Crystal Tower but there was nothing on any of the major networks. She wondered if the regional London news programme might feature something. After all she’d seen their outside broadcast van at the building. Or maybe even they didn’t deem the latest tragedy worthy of a slot.

  She took the milk from the microwave when it was ready and crossed to her large lumpy sofa where she pulled off her shoes and sat down gratefully cradling the milk in one hand. She took a few sips and flicked channels again.

  There was something on about a possible increase in the Congestion Charge, a story about a boy of twelve who’d been stabbed in his classroom at a school in Tottenham and some other items that Jess found less than riveting but towards the end of the bulletin she saw the caption appear on the bottom of the screen ANOTHER ACCIDENT AT THE CRYSTAL TOWER. The frame then showed a reporter standing a few feet from the temporary fence around the Crystal Tower with the looming edifice clearly visible in the background. There were a number of long distance shots of the structure before they cut back to the reporter.

  Jess grabbed the remote and turned up the sound.

  ‘…incident in as many weeks,’ the reporter was saying into camera. ‘The families of both men killed have been notified. An investigation will be conducted but a police spokesman said that there didn’t appear to be any blame attached to the building owners and that the accident had been unavoidable. Health and Safety officials will present a full report tomorrow afternoon after an investigation.’

  Jess raised her eyebrows and sipped more milk.

  There was another shot of the building and then the weather forecast came on.

  ‘Don’t overdo it will you?’ Jess murmured, watching as a smiling weatherman told her that it was going to rain during the night and then turn humid during the day. She shook her head and flicked channels in a desperate attempt to find something to watch as she finished her drink. She finally settled on an old black and white film but it was little more than background sound as she scrolled through the photos she’d taken earlier that evening.

  Perhaps Hadley had been right, perhaps her imagination was working overtime. Maybe she was trying to make a story where there really wasn’t one. She looked again at the pictures of the bloodied mess that lay on the stretcher between the two paramedics and wondered briefly who this man had been in life. That was something else Hadley would have taken her to task about. He’d have said that her job was to take pictures, not to get too interested in the people she photographed. He…

  Hadley. Why are you even thinking about him?

  Jess cradled the mug in her hands and gazed blankly at the TV screen.

  What happened between you is ancient history.

  She stretched out on the sofa.

  It still happened though didn’t it?

  Jess yawned. Perhaps she might be able to sleep if she went to bed, she mused. She stretched again then finished the warm milk.

  Maybe it was working.

  She smiled to herself and headed towards the bedroom deciding that she could always read for a while if she didn’t drop off straight away.

  Outside the traffic continued to roll past and, from the doorway of an abandoned shop on the other side of the road, eyes that had been watching since she returned saw the light in Jess’s basement flat go out.

  TWELVE

 
; Alex Hadley had been alone before and it had never bothered him. He was alone but not lonely. Loneliness he had always thought was a state of mind and he had never been in that state.

  That was what he told himself now as he stood before the door of his flat fumbling in his coat pocket for the key. And yet, even as he pushed the key into the lock he felt a shiver run through him. It was a kind of foreboding, Hadley knew that was a melodramatic word but it was the only one suitable to describe the feeling coursing through him now. He opened the door and stepped inside, flicking on the light in the process. He stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him, leaning backwards against the partition for a moment, letting out a long slow breath.

  Home at last.

  Hadley shook his head and almost managed a smile.

  Home. This is what you have to call home now.

  He dragged off his coat and hung it up on one of the hooks to his right.

  Home is where the heart is. Home sweet home. How many other fucking clichés could you think of? All of them similarly inappropriate.

  He walked down the short passageway past the first bedroom and the bathroom opposite and turned left into the kitchen where he filled the kettle and switched it on. Perhaps a drink would have been better but he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol for close to twelve years now. In the time leading up to his sobriety he’d consumed enough for several dozen lifetimes he thought but it had been easier to give up than he’d anticipated and he didn’t want to go back now. Not with his drinking anyway. Any other aspect of his life he would gladly have re-run and experienced again because anything had to be better than the way he was living now. If it could be called a life. It was an existence. Nothing more. Alex Hadley existed in the world he was forced to inhabit now. And he hated it. Just as he hated his home.

  Home. Home was a place where you wanted to be. Somewhere you looked forward to returning to. A place that was yours. Not this.

  He glanced around the small kitchen, spooning coffee into a mug while he waited for the kettle to boil. Even though there wasn’t much on any of the worktops it still seemed overcrowded to Hadley. He felt as if the walls were shrinking around him, closing in. A bit like his life. He nodded to himself as if answering his own unspoken musings. He looked at the kettle again, saw that it wasn’t even close to boiling and slipped through into the sitting room where he switched on the TV. He didn’t care what was on he just wanted to hear something in the background. He stood by the window for a moment gazing out towards the street below, watching people passing by in groups, in couples or alone and he felt an overwhelming sense of detachment. The world they were moving around in wasn’t his world. It was as if he was watching them from some different plane of being. Hadley grunted and shook his head.

  Pretentious bastard.

  He turned and walked back to the kitchen where the kettle had finally deigned to boil. He made himself a coffee and looked in the fridge for some milk.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he murmured seeing that there was none. He’d meant to get some but seeing Jess seemed to have wiped his memory and he’d forgotten just like he forgot so many other things these days. Nothing seemed worth remembering any more. Not even milk. He sighed and put extra sugar in it as he was going to be drinking it black. It was bitter and he winced when he sipped it but it was better than nothing so clutching his mug he headed off towards the second bedroom of the flat and pushed the door open.

  When he’d first moved in, Hadley had determined that this room would be his office. He’d also determined that it would be just a short-term arrangement and that he’d be out of the place and in somewhere better before too long. That particular fantasy had not materialised hence the unpacked boxes still piled in one corner of the room with LIVING ROOM, DINING ROOM and STUDY still scrawled on them in black marker pen. There was a layer of dust covering them too that Hadley was always meaning to wipe away but, as with so much more these days, he never seemed to get around to it. Against one wall there was a small desk with a laptop perched on it and he crossed to the computer and switched it on, sipping his coffee while it whirred into life. The connection was slow as usual and Hadley waited impatiently until the laptop finally began to display something on its screen.

  He turned his back on the unpacked boxes and stood in the semi-darkness, the other items in the room illuminated only by the dull glow from the laptop screen. Hadley sat down before it, his fingers flicking across the keys with their customary speed.

  ANDREI VORONOV.

  He looked at the name for a moment, his eyes fixed on it.

  ‘Who are you?’ he whispered, watching as search results began to fill the screen. Hadley selected one and began reading.

  He was still sitting there two hours later.

  RETALIATION

  LONDON; JUNE 1933

  There was a stiff breeze blowing off the Thames and the old man shivered as he stood beside the great river, watching as a boat chugged past him, its lights reflecting in the water.

  Someone on the deck was walking about and the old man watched them wondering where the boat was heading and what was the business of those on board then he pushed the thoughts from his mind and re-focused on his own task.

  There was a full moon that night and it cast its cold white glow across the city every time the thick banks of cloud that filled the skies drifted away from it.

  The old man looked up each time as if he thought the moon was watching him as he stood at the bottom of the stone steps that had led him down from the embankment to the soft earth that marked the banks of the river. His trousers were tucked into long boots and even these sank deeply into the muddy bank as he walked, moving away from some piles of rubbish and soggy wood that had been washed up by the passage of the river.

  The Thames snaked through the city like a dirty tongue, as much a thoroughfare as any of the roads that criss-crossed the capital. Two more boats passed by as if to reinforce that belief and the old man could also hear the sound of the water lapping at the bank as he walked along carrying a metal bucket in each mud spattered hand.

  They were both filled with wet earth that he’d dug from close to the water’s edge and they were heavy. For a man half his age they would have made a daunting burden but for a man of his advanced years they slowed his movement practically to a stop. Every four or five steps he would stop and take several deep breaths before continuing onwards.

  It was always like this.

  But there was no one he could ask to help him. No one who could share the burden and the weight. This task had to be done by him alone.

  His arms ached and his legs were beginning to stiffen too but he knew that he still had to carry the buckets back to his house and that was another forty-five minutes’ walk.

  He blew out his cheeks as much at the thought of that marathon as at the weight of his cargo but he continued on, stopping again when he had to but not complaining. He knew this had to be done and there was no other way to do it so he forged ahead.

  The climb from the bank up the stone steps to the embankment was hard work and when he reached the top his heart was thudding hard against his ribs. He leant against the wall at the top and sucked in deep breaths, more than once touching his chest with the flat of one muddied hand. It took a while before he felt sufficiently refreshed to continue with his journey and when he did take the next few steps they were faltering ones but he soon regained his footing and walked on determinedly. Two men passed him moving in the other direction but they cast him only cursory glances, neither interested in an old man carrying two buckets of mud who panted for breath as he walked.

  No one else cared.

  No one else was interested.

  And that was how the old man liked it.

  It would take another two nights before he was finished.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘So what do you think?’

  Jessica Anderson sipped her red wine and looked across the table at the man with her.

  ‘I don’t know,�
� the man said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I’m not a journalist, am I?’

  ‘Oh come on, Spike,’ Jess persisted. ‘I asked you for your opinion.’

  ‘It’s weird,’ the man conceded. ‘I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Weird hardly qualifies as an opinion.’

  ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

  Jess regarded the man opposite her evenly and appraisingly.

  Mark Paxton was thirty. He was a large man with a heavy growth of beard and long dark hair which he’d fastened into a pony tail. He was wearing a baggy black sweatshirt and loose fitting jeans which did nothing to compliment his build and if anything made him look more overweight than he was. Perched on the wooden chair opposite Jess he had barely moved since they’d arrived at the pub in the Aldwych other than to down two pints of Guinness and eat his food. Paxton wasn’t known for his athleticism, Jess thought to herself but what he did didn’t require the build or constitution of a marathon runner. He had, as he liked to remind people, spent most of his life sitting on his arse. Jess couldn’t help but think that his build reflected that statement perfectly.

  He twirled his fork in his fingers and speared some more chips with it, pushing them into his mouth.

  ‘So this is the lunch you promised me?’ Paxton said through a mouthful of potato.

  ‘What were you expecting, the Ritz?’ Jess smiled.

  ‘It’s going on expenses, isn’t it?

  She nodded.

  ‘Then I’ll have another Guinness when you’re ready,’ Paxton told her, draining what was left in his glass.

  ‘I bet your other clients don’t treat you as well as I do,’ Jess said, sipping her own drink.

  ‘They’re hardly clients, Jess.’

  ‘They pay you for information don’t they?’

  Paxton smiled and pulled at his beard with one hand.

  ‘You must be rolling in it, Spike,’ Jess continued. ‘How many contacts have you got? How many people do you supply information to?’