Lullaby

by Claire Seeber

  ‘There had to be a catch, didn’t there?’

  ‘What?’ he asked, all innocent. He fished his tobacco out of his leather, started rolling up. His fingernails were filthy and broken; his nicotine stains spreading like canker down towards his palms.

  ‘Oh come on, Robbie! For a “little consideration”?’ I mimicked him. Crossly I pulled my pants on too fast and nearly fell; just in time, I caught myself on his knee. I stomped to the drawers and pulled out a clean vest-top, putting a pair of denim cut-offs on. ‘What the hell does that mean, a “little consideration”? You mean if I give you some money you’ll go and spend it on-on something you shouldn’t have—and then you’ll pretend you’ve given it to this geezer, and I’ll never see it again. Or probably you, either.’

  ‘You don’t think much of me, do you?’ Robbie said woefully. He had that delicate skin that flared and stained easily; his colour was high suddenly. He kept his eyes cast down as he concentrated on licking his cigarette, playing for time. I sensed that he couldn’t decide whether to get angry, or be mortally wounded by my mistrust. He used to do this when we were kids, always choosing the path most profitable for him.

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Robbie.’ Perhaps I was being disingenuous; perhaps we all did the same. It was so hot again, my mascara was already sliding beneath my eyes. I wiped it away furiously. ‘If that’s all you came to say, perhaps you should go now.’

  ‘But I’m serious. I really reckon this bloke can help. And I’m not doing gear. I swear I’m not. I haven’t done for—for years.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  I looked at him. ‘So what the hell were you doing in Elephant and Castle the other day? Drinking tea?’

  We had never really spoken about the drug thing. The rest of the family used to pretend the problem didn’t exist; it seemed easier that way—for my mother, anyway. I had tried to broach it once or twice after catching Robbie in awkward situations—but he’d always denied it stringently. I mean, I knew that he was up for anything as an adolescent—after the family’s final shame—uppers, downers, vitamin pills. When we’d shared a room, I was always finding his stash of what-ever-it-might-be-this-week, and chucking it away-much to his wrath.

  ‘I was just doing some business.’ For a minute, I thought he was going to cry. His voice had reached the pitch of an unhappy child who felt the world was against him. I forced myself to be tougher than my instinct said.

  ‘Rob, look. If you really think you can help, I’d be grateful. But I’m not going to dole out money so you can hand it over to dodgy men in the Soho underworld. If you want to help, you give him the money and see what he comes up with. And we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘But—’ His voice was nearly a whisper. I felt his sudden surge of desperation.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I haven’t got any money. I’m absolutely brassic.’

  ‘What about what Mum sent you?’

  ‘I haven’t got it yet. Some problem with the bank account.’

  ‘How did you afford the tooth?’

  He looked at me blankly.

  ‘Your new tooth.’ I pointed at the gleaming cap. ‘You’ve had it fixed.’

  ‘I had enough for that. Couldn’t go round looking like a minger, could I, Jess? What would the girls say?’

  I didn’t believe him, but I couldn’t help it. Old habits died hard and all that crap. Opening the little drawer in my dressing-table, I fished out a twenty, a tenner and some pound coins stuffed between my higgledy-piggledy jewellery boxes.

  ‘Here. For you, not the “bloke”’, I said, thrusting it at him. I couldn’t bear to look at him. My beautiful little brother—tattooed, dirty and desperate. Where the hell had it all gone wrong? He took it; he didn’t look back at me either.

  ‘Robbie,’ I said, and this time it was me that whispered. ‘Sort yourself out, mate, yeah? Please. Before it’s really too late.’

  He left the room as stealthy as a cat. He didn’t look back.

  As I headed downstairs, the phone began to ring. Deb came out of the kitchen, crossed the hall towards it. I hated the phone these days, it terrified me each time it rang, but now I skidded across the parquet to get there first. Too slow—Deb already had the receiver in her hand. I grabbed it from her as she lifted it to her ear.

  ‘It’s all right, Deb, I’ve got it.’ I turned my back on her but I still felt her scrutiny. She frowned and walked away, headed into the living room where the telly was blaring away to itself. Subtly, she tried to turn it down.

  As I’d hoped, it was Pauline, with Agnes’s mobile number. I scribbled it down quickly, mumbling my thanks as Deb strained to catch the conversation.

  ‘Who was that?’ she called as I hung up. I shrugged, shoved the number in my back pocket.

  ‘No one important. Just an old mate.’

  She kept staring at me.

  ‘What?’ I said innocently, and shot into the kitchen before she could say anything more. I liked Deb but, God, I felt suffocated. My chest hurt. I kept picturing myself like a tiny cork caught up in swirling white waters, bobbing valiantly to keep myself above water, struggling not to get swept under forever.

  Later, in the car, Deb tried to bring the phone call up again. I put the radio on loudly to drown her out. Some phone-in about terrorism, some hysterical female presenter. Some poor guy had been shot mistakenly by armed policemen.

  ‘Doesn’t give you much faith in the Old Bill, does it?’ I said. I kept thinking about what Robbie had said, about the police when we were kids. About that bastard DC Jones. I didn’t want to remember any of it—that final indignity after my dad had died. Not now, not ever. I switched over to a dance station. I felt about 900—far too old for dance music—but I turned it up anyway. Deb gave in.

  *

  After the usual press affair, I was taken to see Silver in his office. He seemed psyched-up, trying not to let it show, perhaps, but his excitement was infectious. He was talking on the phone, waiting to be put through to someone. I daren’t let myself get carried away.

  DC Kelly came in and handed Silver a file. Silver scanned it, hung up the phone. ‘Ian will explain,’ he said, still reading, gesturing at Egg-belly, who was as unkempt and exhausted-looking as usual. Perhaps he was conducting the whole investigation on his own. He smoothed his tie—pointlessly. It looked every bit as rumpled as it had a moment ago.

  ‘Do you have any particular connections with Soho?’ he asked. He had a quiet, low voice, and I had to strain to hear him above the air-conditioning. His scalp was very pink between strands of greased-back hair. He repeated himself, meticulously polite as always.

  I frowned as I considered the question hard. ‘No. Well, not other than doing a lot of drinking there when I was—’ I was about to say younger, but actually it was only last year. Just as I met Mickey, before I fell pregnant so incredibly fast. ‘Not really. Not apart from Mickey’s office being there, of course. Why?’

  Kelly looked at Silver; Silver tapped his pen discordantly between his perfect teeth. ‘All in good time, kiddo. Have a really proper think.’

  I racked my brains hopefully, but nothing came to mind. Miserably I shook my head, but Silver smiled at me.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’re following a lead, something the video guys have noticed from studying the tape, something we originally thought was a recording fault. Turns out it’s more likely to be to do with where it was shot.’

  The enigma just frustrated me much more. ‘Please, explain what you mean.’ I leant forward to Silver, but he just smiled mysteriously again. ‘I will when I know more. I don’t want to get your hopes up too early.’ He chucked his pen back down on the desk. ‘That’s it for now, then, Jessica,’ he said formally. ‘Deb’ll take you home.’

  Kelly was up and out immediately. Silver walked me to the door. He looked down at me for a second, like I was a suspicious parcel.

  ‘Are you giving her a hard time?’ he asked quiet
ly.

  ‘Who?’ I was surprised.

  ‘Deb.’

  Through the glass in the door, I watched her rubbing at an invisible mark on her skirt. She must have felt my stare because she looked up and waved.

  ‘She’s only there to help you, you do know that, don’t you?’

  I felt a twinge of guilt. ‘Why, has she complained?’

  ‘No, not at all. She likes you. I’ve just noticed that you seem a little—irritable with her sometimes.’

  I’d hoped I’d hidden my short fuse better. ‘Do I? Oh God, I don’t mean to be. I mean, it’s odd, having someone always there, checking up on me. But I’m really grateful, honestly, for all your help.’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘It’s just—I suppose I’m so desperate to get Louis back, and it’s all moving so bloody slowly that it’s like living—’ I searched for the words. ‘Like being on a knife-edge. Literally.’ I would have been quite proud of my analogy normally. ‘My balance isn’t very good right now, that’s all.’

  ‘We’re doing our damnedest, Jessica, I promise you. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘It’s been a whole week, you know. Seven and a half days since I saw my son.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Statistically I don’t think that’s very good, do you?’

  His look was kind. ‘I think every case is different, Jess. There’s nothing hard and fast to say where or when kidnapped children are returned.’

  I didn’t want to leave. ‘Sometimes, you know,’ my words were tumbling over one another, ‘sometimes I just feel like I’m going totally insane. Like I’m losing it completely. I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like I should be out there at all hours looking for him. But I also feel like I should be at home, waiting for him. I can’t rest, I can’t relax, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. Oh God.’

  Silver patted me like I was a small child. ‘You’ve just got to hang in there, Jess. Leave the searching to us. You’re doing everything you can. You’re doing great, kiddo.’ Then he herded me out the door; was about to shut it behind me when I stopped it with my foot.

  ‘I was wrong about Robbie, by the way. I’ve seen him now, and I asked him about the dummy. It was a mistake, he said. But I—I want to know, have they spoken to Mickey’s ex yet? Agnes?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you so bothered? Are you getting obsessed?’ he asked, looking at me closely.

  ‘No, I’m not getting obsessed,’ I protested vehemently, but I squirmed under his gaze. ‘I just—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just, I’ve got a funny feeling she may have been at the Tate that day.’

  He nearly choked on his gum. ‘You what? A “funny feeling”?’

  This time I was on the defensive. ‘Well, I’d never seen her till today. I found—I think I found a photo of her this morning. And well—she looks like the woman in the Tate. That weird woman who freaked me out. The one I did the photofit of.’

  ‘Yes, I do know who you mean. Christ Almighty, Jessica, you’ve got to stop doing this to me. Have you got the photo with you?’

  ‘Not with me, no,’ I admitted, rather shame-facedly, ‘it’s at home. Sorry, I didn’t think to bring it.’

  ‘Hang on.’ He went to his desk and buzzed someone. ‘Did you speak to Mickey Finnegan’s ex-wife Agnes yet?’ he said. Then he laughed. ‘Okay. Cheers, mate. No, that’s fine for now.’ The receiver clattered back into the cradle. ‘Jess, I have to say, I don’t see how Agnes can be linked to Louis. Kelly spoke to her on her mobile yesterday and she’s been abroad, in the States I think. I’ll let you know for definite when we’ve interviewed her properly, but we’ve checked all airport records. No Agnes Finnegan has travelled in the past seven or eight days. Apparently she’s coming to London now, on business, anyway. But I really don’t see how your women can be one and the same.’

  My shoulders slumped. A gentle hand pushed me towards the corridor. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to her very soon. And look, like I said, don’t get obsessed. I know she’s your husband’s ex and all, but—’

  ‘Who’s obsessed?’ I said staunchly. ‘Just making sure you’re doing your job, that’s all.’ But I still couldn’t quite tear myself away. He raised his eyebrows as I hesitated at the door. ‘Let me come with you,’ I blurted.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Wherever it is you’re going to check out that tape. I’ll be good, I won’t be—’ I chewed my poor split thumb again ‘—I won’t be—you know, irritable, I swear. I’ll know if Louis is near; I’ll feel it, I know I will.’

  But he shook his head again. ‘I can’t take you, Jessica. It’s not wise. For your sake, as much as mine.’ Very gently he removed my hand from the door. ‘I’ll be in touch, I promise, as soon as there’s some news. Now, I must get on.’

  He shut the door softly in my face. I was about to knock again when my phone rang. It was the hospital, a concerned Sister Kwame on the line.

  ‘Mrs Finnegan, you really must tell your family not to upset your husband.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I was baffled. ‘What family?’

  ‘He really should not be having visitors right now. Only you. It is too much for him. Even when he is under sedation.’

  ‘I didn’t know anyone had been there apart from me.’

  ‘I thought you okayed it. They both said you did.’

  ‘Who?’ I demanded impatiently. ‘Which “both”? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘He came last night, the man. He said he was a cousin. And the woman came today. I’m not sure of her name. She’s still here, I think.’

  ‘Hang on.’ I rushed towards the doors, to Deb, fear pumping through my veins. ‘Tell her to wait. I’m on my way.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I sat by Mickey’s bed and listened to him ramble. His head tossed and turned this way and that; he was obviously feverish. They were pumping antibiotics into him; they didn’t know why he wasn’t recovering. They didn’t actually say as much, but I sensed it in the air.

  ‘Sorry,’ he kept saying, over and again; and next, inaudible rubbish would spool out of him. Then ‘Louis’. ‘Louis’ and ‘sorry’: they were the only two words I could make out.

  By the time I’d arrived, Mickey’s mystery visitor had vanished into the ether. The sister hadn’t actually seen the woman herself, although she’d described last night’s male visitor as dark and sweaty-looking, which made my heart plummet straight through the floor. And of course the staff nurse on duty who’d let the woman in had gone off-shift by now and couldn’t be reached, however much I insisted I needed to speak to her. Biting my lip in frustration, I paced the room watching Mickey until, after a while, I couldn’t bear the tension any more. I went outside for some fresh air. It was still very close and I felt in my pocket for my inhaler, but instead I came across Agnes’s number from this morning. I stared at it for a moment, and then I fished the new phone Deb had got me out of my bag and I dialled her number. It rang like it was ringing abroad; she didn’t answer. I left a message. I said that this was Mickey’s wife, and I didn’t know if she’d heard, but Mickey was ill and our son was missing, and I asked her to please call me back. Then I realised I didn’t know what my new number was, so I had to phone her back with it. Afterwards, I went inside again, and listened to yet more of Mickey’s insane ramblings, stroking his freezing hand.

  When I left the hospital it was late afternoon. If anything, it felt hotter than before. As I turned my phone back on, the message signal bleeped frantically. I had two—one from Robbie, begging me to call him. The other was a cool foreign voice I’d never heard before. Agnes. She sounded just like I’d imagined that she would: Transatlantic, glam. She had just landed at Heathrow, she said, and was on her way to the Sanderson Hotel in central London for business meetings. I could call her on her mobile if I wanted to speak.

  Deb was down in the car park, sorting out the ticket. I didn’t stop to think about it, I just ran to the side of the
road and flagged down a cab, launching myself guiltily into the back before Deb could witness my flight.

  Apart from my brief jaunt to the opera the other night, when my son was still safe, I hadn’t been into town for months. I was amazed by all the noise, the sheer amount of people; the eternal red and white road-works. Sirens like I imagined on the mean streets of New York. I sat behind a taxi driver as round as a billiard-ball; his bald head matt, like he’d just powdered it. He wanted to talk about terrorism; I nodded politely and contemplated Agnes. What the hell I’d say to her. ‘Are you screwing my husband?’ seemed a bit of a non-starter.

  When I got out at the Sanderson, which looked exactly like some drab old office-block, the driver said, ‘Don’t tip me, love. Not in this time of crisis.’ Which crisis? I nearly asked; and tipped him anyway before flip-flopping my way anxiously into the hotel. Weird fish floated in the spherical reception desk, and I asked the immaculate girl sitting above them for Agnes Finnegan. It didn’t register; nor did I know the company she worked for. By this time, despite my polite smiles, the receptionist was staring at me like something the Sanderson’s prize Siamese had just dragged in. She knew I didn’t belong here. The lobby was cram-full of people wanting to be seen, busy pretending that they didn’t. I flashed ‘misfit’ like it was stamped in neon across my head.

  I was about to ring Agnes’s mobile again when I suddenly spotted her striding through the doors. The woman in Mickey’s photo; white jacket draped over bronzed, coathanger shoulders, a pile of Louis Vuitton and a sweaty porter in tow. Her hair was scraped back severely from a strong-jawed face. She was very striking—beautiful, in fact. My heart plunged absolutely. Of course Silver had been right. She wasn’t the woman from the Tate; they looked nothing alike. She wasn’t even blonde any more; her hair was more of a tawny shade now. I glanced down at my shabby cut-offs and wondered nervously when I’d last washed my own tangled curls. I forced myself to step forward anyway, intercepting her before she reached the desk.