MONOLITH

by Shaun Hutson

  The cool air inside the shop was welcoming and the old man made his way to the rear of the shop to kitchen where he spun the tap and watched the water filling the bucket.

  Once that was done he would continue with his task.

  But, before he did, he selected the large key from his pocket that would unlock the cellar door.

  There was something down there he had to attend to.

  NINETEEN

  He was standing near a large wheeled skip smoking a cigarette and staring at the ground as if there were diamonds buried in the concrete. He wore the dark green uniform and luminous yellow bib that instantly marked him out as a paramedic and he seemed oblivious to the people moving past him and around him as he smoked his cigarette.

  Jess watched him for a moment longer then walked briskly towards him, seeing him glance up in her direction briefly then he dropped his eyes once more, seemingly more interested in what lay before him on the ground. He took another drag and spat out a small piece of tobacco that had been sticking to his tongue.

  Jess slowed her pace and moved nearer to him.

  ‘Mr Gibson?’ she said, quietly.

  He looked up and met her gaze with large watery eyes.

  ‘James Gibson?’ Jess went on.

  The man nodded and took another drag on his cigarette.

  ‘My name is Jessica Anderson, I’m a reporter,’ she told him.

  Gibson eyed her blankly and didn’t speak.

  ‘I was wondering if we could talk,’ Jess said.

  ‘About what?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’m working.’ He nodded towards the ambulance that was parked in the road across the street its blue lights turning silently.

  ‘You don’t look very busy,’ Jess told him.

  ‘What do you want?’ Gibson snapped.

  ‘You know Spike?’

  Gibson looked blank.

  ‘Oh come on, Mr Gibson, you called him this afternoon about that accident at the Crystal Tower. You were one of the paramedics in attendance weren’t you?’

  Again Gibson said nothing; he merely drew on his cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke in Jess’s direction.

  ‘Can I get one of those?’ she said, pointing at the cigarette.

  Gibson dug his hand in his pocket, pulled out a pack of Marlboro and offered her one which she took, also accepting his somewhat reluctant offer of a light. The flame of the Zippo danced in the breeze for a moment then Jess backed away, the end of the cigarette glowing red.

  ‘Spike said you’d pay for what I’ve got,’ Gibson announced.

  ‘Depends what it is and whether it’s worth paying for,’ Jess told him.

  ‘I took some photos of the guy this afternoon,’ Gibson informed her, pulling out his phone.

  ‘Let me see them.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘They might not be worth anything.’

  Gibson hesitated.

  Jess reached into her bag, took a twenty from her purse and shoved it into the paramedic’s hand.

  ‘That’ll do for a start,’ he said and held up the phone before her.

  Jess looked at the first picture.

  ‘Jesus,’ she murmured, studying the shot. It showed Alan Reed skewered to the wall, blood staining his upper body and overalls. ‘Death by forklift truck. That’s original.’

  Gibson scrolled through several more pictures.

  ‘He was dead when you got to him?’ Jess asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ Gibson chided.

  ‘Was anyone else injured?’

  ‘No. Just him.’

  ‘What do you think happened?’

  Gibson shrugged.

  ‘The brake on the forklift must have failed somehow,’ he said. ‘He was standing in front of it and …’ he allowed the sentence to trail off.

  Jess frowned and inspected the pictures more closely.

  ‘There’s virtually no blood,’ she murmured.

  ‘What?’ Gibson grunted, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘Around the body,’ she repeated. ‘There’s hardly any blood. Not on the wall behind him, not on the floor under him. Don’t you think that’s strange?’ Gibson nodded.

  ‘Major arteries would have been severed by an injury like that wouldn’t they?’ Jess said.

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘And yet there’s very little blood other than on his clothes. Was the scene cleaned up before you guys arrived?’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  Jess shook her head.

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ she muttered.

  Gibson reached for the phone but Jess kept it out of his reach, still scrolling through the pictures.

  ‘Were the police called too?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘There weren’t any when we arrived,’ Gibson told her. ‘There were lots of guys in suits though. I think someone said they were security or something.’

  ‘Voronov’s Private Security Guards,’ Jess murmured. ‘Did they touch the body? Move anything? Clean up?’

  ‘Not that I saw. Why would they do that?’

  Jess shook her head.

  ‘So what about the pictures?’ Gibson insisted. ‘They’re worth more than twenty quid.’

  Jess looked at him then scrolled through a few more of the shots on the phone.

  ‘Fifty,’ she said, flatly.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he snapped, grinning crookedly. ‘I could flog them to another reporter for more than that.’

  ‘Then do it,’ she said, flatly. ‘Fifty or nothing.’

  Gibson took a final drag on his cigarette then tossed it aside. He held out his hand.

  ‘Fifty,’ he repeated.

  Jess fumbled in her purse for the money, hesitating a moment.

  ‘And I’m the only one who’s going to see these pictures aren’t I?’

  Gibson nodded.

  Jess pushed the money towards him.

  Gibson took it with a grunt and shoved it into his pocket.

  ‘Nice doing business with you,’ Jess said as he stalked off towards the waiting ambulance.

  She waited a moment then selected the phone book on her mobile. She found the number she wanted and called.

  TWENTY

  Jess didn’t look at her watch but she guessed it was just past nine when she got back to her flat.

  She wandered into the kitchen, retrieved the half bottle of vodka from the freezer and poured some into a glass that was standing on the drainer. However, instead of taking a sip of the liquor she merely looked at it, wondering if she really wanted it.

  Dutch courage?

  She put the glass down untouched thinking how ridiculous this was. She was about to call her own mother, she didn’t need anything to give her strength or fortitude. She felt suddenly irritated with herself but nonetheless the feeling persisted. She knew she should make the call but she didn’t really want to.

  You’re worried about yourself not your mum.

  Jess sighed, left the vodka on the worktop and walked through into the sitting room where she sat down, selecting the number she knew she had to call. Only then did she check her watch to see what the time was. She knew that her mum slavishly watched soap operas every night of the week for an hour and a half or more and she didn’t want to interrupt her now.

  That’s a good excuse. Not used that one before have you?

  She decided that the soaps or whatever else her mum watched at this time of night was now probably over and it was safe to call. She selected the number she needed and waited.

  It took a while for the phone to be picked up at the other end and during the lull Jess entertained the same thought she always did when she had to wait too long for her mother to pick up the phone. She imagined that something was wrong, that her mum was ill, had collapsed or fallen down the stairs or something equally appalling and only when she heard a familiar but slightly faltering voice at the other end did she relax to a degree.

  ‘Hello,’ said the frail voice at the other end of the line. There was some hesitan
cy in the tone that Jess knew only too well.

  ‘Mum, it’s me,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Jess. Are you alright, dear?’

  ‘I’m fine, Mum, I said I’d ring so I’m ringing. Sorry I had to rush off earlier.’

  ‘So am I but it’s not your fault.’

  Jess felt a stab that she recognised only too quickly and easily as guilt.

  ‘Did you get everything done that you had to do?’ her mother asked.

  ‘It was just work stuff,’ Jess said. She didn’t see any reason to go into too much detail.

  ‘As long as you’re alright, dear,’ her mother said. ‘Perhaps you can stay longer next time.’

  ‘I will, Mum,’ Jess said, wishing that she could give some kind of guarantee but knowing she couldn’t. ‘Are you watching TV?’

  ‘Well I was but I just dropped off for a few minutes, there’s never much on anyway is there?’

  ‘Sorry if I woke you up.’

  ‘I’ll be going to bed soon anyway.’

  ‘It’s only just after nine, Mum. You don’t want to be going to bed this early. Why don’t you watch a film or something?’

  ‘I think I’ll have an early night. I feel tired anyway and there’s nothing to sit up for. It was different when your dad was alive but with no one to talk to …’ She let the sentence trail off.

  Jess felt another stab of guilt.

  Why? It’s not your fault your dad died is it?

  ‘Perhaps you could stay one night,’ her mother went on. ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘I will, Mum,’ Jess said. She could already feel tears welling up in her eyes and she needed to end this call before she started openly weeping.

  ‘You won’t be late in bed, will you, dear?’ her mother asked. ‘You have to be up for work, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m just going to do some work then I’ll be going to bed, Mum,’ Jess said, sniffing.

  There was a heavy silence that seemed to go on forever then Jess spoke again.

  ‘I’ll let you finish watching your programme, Mum,’ she said.

  ‘Alright then, dear,’ her mother replied. Another long silence. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, Mum.’

  As she finished the call the first tears began to roll down her cheeks. And it was a while before they stopped.

  TWENTY-ONE

  As Alex Hadley selected the key for his mailbox the same thoughts always went through his mind.

  Don’t let there be any bills or any threatening letters.

  Sometimes he even said the words out loud as he opened the mailbox to examine the contents. Now he opened the box and peered in, taking the mail from within and glancing at the envelopes there. It seemed to be mostly circulars, junk mail, invitations to furniture sales and local restaurants. If he had a pound for every new takeaway that had opened and sent out its menu he wouldn’t have to work. He shook his head. All bullshit. But that was good, he reasoned. Bullshit was better than bills. Among the envelopes with windows (usually a bad sign) there were a couple that he recognised the return addresses to.

  Fuck it. Bills. Some bastard somewhere wanted money from him. Money he didn’t have to spare.

  Hadley let out a long breath.

  He flicked through the other envelopes making another mental note to check the mailbox more than once a week. That was one of the reasons he had so much mail. He barely looked in the box unless the mood took him. He saw a brown manila one and he swallowed hard and kept that one until last, re-locking the box and beginning his trudge up the stairs towards his flat.

  He told himself that the trips he made up and down the steps were good for him. They were the only exercise he got these days so perhaps they actually were. He passed the doors to the other flats; two on each landing, glancing at each one in turn, wondering what was going on behind them. During the time he’d lived here he’d barely said a hundred words to each of his neighbours. The flat directly below him was rented by a young woman who he thought was French. What she did for a living he had no idea, just as he had no idea if she was really French but on the very odd occasions he had passed a few fleeting words with her he thought he’d detected an accent of some sort.

  He reached his own landing and looked at the door opposite. Another young woman lived there alone but she was hardly ever in. As with the occupant downstairs, Hadley had spoken briefly to her on occasion but neither had ever thought to ask the other’s name or anything else. As with most people, the extent of the conversation covered the state of the weather and that was it. There was a parcel from Amazon propped against her door and Hadley wondered about taking it in for her. Then he shook his head and decided against it. It wasn’t likely to get stolen where it was. The two couples who lived on the floor above were both decent enough (or so he guessed from the limited words he’d exchanged with them). Professional people he assumed (that term seemed to cover a multitude of sins) and no one from outside could gain access to the small block without a master key anyway. He looked at the parcel one last time then made his way inside his flat, locking it behind him.

  Every now and then there was a story in the news about how someone living in a flat had died and not been found for months and always people expressed their shock and surprise at how this could have happened but Hadley knew only too well how it could happen. People simply didn’t cross paths the way they used to. They didn’t bump into each other every day. Barely spoke because they were in a hurry to get work or somewhere. No one had a sense of community any more. That was how people died in fucking flats and rotted away for months with just their starving cats chewing their faces off. London, as with any big city, was one of the loneliest places in the world if you were alone. And up until a couple of years ago Hadley had rejoiced in that fact. He spoke to the people he wanted to speak to back then. He picked who he conversed with. Now he would have given anything just to have stopped for a chat with someone.

  How times change.

  He flicked on the lights and wandered into the living area, dropping the circulars and junk mail into the waste bin then he finally came to the brown envelope at the bottom of the pile.

  Satisfied that it wasn’t from the Tax Office he looked at the envelope more closely.

  There was a crest in the top left hand corner. The word HOSPITAL was printed beneath it.

  Hadley swallowed hard and tore open the envelope, his eyes scanning the letter within.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he murmured as he read, the colour draining from his cheeks.

  He read and re-read the letter then folded it up, replaced it in the envelope and slipped it into his inside pocket.

  Out of sight out of mind? If only.

  He sat in the room for long moments gazing at the blank TV screen and listening to the sounds of traffic from outside then he got slowly to his feet. He thought about making a cup of tea, wished he drank so he could have consumed something stronger then decided that tea was the best option. At least the physical act of making it would kill a few minutes.

  As he walked through into the kitchen he pulled the brown manila envelope from his pocket and dropped it onto the small and crowded worktop while he filled the kettle, dropped a teabag into a mug and retrieved the milk from the fridge. He muttered under his breath when he noticed that the container and the fluid inside weren’t as cold as they should be. Fucking fridge was on the blink now he reasoned. Something else that didn’t work properly and would need money to fix. He shook his head, his gaze drawn to the brown envelope once more.

  His eye alighted again on the word HOSPITAL.

  He clenched his teeth together until his jaws ached.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jess had always found the buzz of conversation within the office strangely conducive to creativity. She preferred to have noises around her when she was working rather than the silence preferred by many in her trade and those who made their livings by producing articles or works even grander. The constant hum of chat and the ringing of phones seemed to focu
s her mind rather than cause distraction. Even when she was working from home she invariably had music or the TV on in the background. Something there to produce the sort of mental proddings she found so necessary to work.

  Now she sat back in her chair and glanced around the office at some of her colleagues, the source of the background noise and the conversational muzak Jess craved so badly. There were three men gathered around one desk, all of them in their mid-thirties and all talking animatedly and a little too loudly. At another desk she saw one of her older colleagues glancing up occasionally with a look on her face that could best be described as disapproving. Each time the men’s conversation grew too loud she would tut to herself and shake her head as if those simple gestures would cause the men to stop. They didn’t.

  Jess looked back at her own computer screen. There were several different coloured post-its stuck to the edges of the screen, each one intended to remind her to perform a task. One even said FOUR PINTS OF MILK. Jess took that one, balled it up and threw it into her waste bin. It landed on top of the pile of overflowing rubbish that was already there and toppled off onto the floor. Jess wondered if she should write herself a post-it saying EMPTY BIN.

  She smiled to herself and got to her feet, fumbling in her handbag for her purse and pulling out some loose change. Armed with this she headed towards the door at the end of the large open plan office and through it to the vending machine beyond.

  There were two more of her colleagues standing close to the machine talking quietly and both turned and smiled when they saw Jess approaching.

  ‘Hey, you,’ said the first of them, a tall dark haired woman with a long nose and high cheekbones.

  Jess reached out and touched the woman’s arm warmly.

  ‘And how are things in the world of fashion?’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Oh darling,’ said the woman adopting an exaggeratedly affected accent. ‘They’re fabulous as ever. I’m off to New York fashion week in a couple of days.’