by Tom Graham
‘Shits, the lot of them,’ spat Annie, turning on him.
‘Oh aye?’
‘Yes, Ray, aye.’
‘Who’s talking here?’ Ray asked, suppressing a grin. ‘You, or your ‘omones?’
Annie sneered at him, a look of genuine disgust contorting her face. ‘I bet you’d’ve been just the same …’
‘Same as what?’
But Annie just slowly shook her head in contempt. Sam knew what she was referring to. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps if Ray had been in the force back in the days when Clive Gould had half the police in his pocket, he too would have been part of the cover up.
‘Annie,’ Sam said softly. ‘Let me take you home.’
‘Hold up,’ Ray said. He set down his drink, rested his smouldering cigarette in the ashtray, and squared up to Annie like he was preparing to duke it out with her. ‘What you getting at, Cartwright? Eh? You want to be one of the team? You want to be treated just the same as the blokes? Fine. I’ll treat you like a bloke. You look halfway like a bloke, so that’s a start. Now – spit it out – what are you accusin’ me of?’
‘Ray, grow up and piss off,’ Sam said. ‘Annie, let’s go. I’ll walk you to your –’
Annie pushed Sam away with her elbow, not even looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Ray. Like him, she also looked on the verge of getting physical.
‘You would have been just like ’em!’ she hissed.
‘Like what, you drippy tart?!’ Ray came back at her.
‘You’d have sold him out too, just like they did …’
‘What are you talking about! I’m a gnat’s chuff away from decking you, Cartwright!’
‘Try it,’ Annie said.
‘Ray, I said pack it in!’ Sam barked, refusing to be shoved aside. ‘Annie’s got more on her mind right now than you could possibly imagine.’
‘But she ain’t saying very much, is she!’ Ray shouted back. ‘Making accusations what she don’t back up. Now why’s she doing that?’
‘It’s personal!’ Sam said, raising his voice. ‘It’s nothing to do with you! It’s about her and her father and –’
He knew at once that he’d said too much. He tried to bite off the words as they came out of his mouth, but of course it was too late.
‘Her father?’ sneered Ray. And he gave a bitter, who-gives-a-shit laugh. ‘So all this is because a little girl got a problem with her daddy? Stone me, is he as big a twat as you are, Cartwright?’
With lightning speed, Annie smashed her glass against Ray’s face and down he went, striking the bar and bouncing off it and fetching up in a heap on the floor. There was suddenly noise and chaos as the crowd of drinkers around him reacted to the violence and tried to surge away from it.
Sam reached out for Annie, but she was already fighting her way out, clawing and elbowing her way through the packed pub, making for the street.
Ray clambered to his feet, his face speckled with blood, his shirt and jacket drenched with gin and tonic. A slice of lemon had wedged itself half into his breast pocket, like a yellow handkerchief. Furiously, he made to go after Annie, but Sam threw himself in front of him, bringing up his fists. Without hesitating, Ray drew back his own fist to hurl a punch – and found his wrist clamped tight in Nelson’s hand. Ray struggled to get free, but Nelson held him fast.
‘Let’s have some mellow in here,’ he said. At once, the clamour and confusion evaporated. The pub fell silent.
‘Get your ruddy ‘and off me!’ Ray growled. His blood was up. He was dangerous.
But Nelson did not so much as bat an eyelid: ‘I said mellow … And that goes for you to, Mr Raymond, sir.’
He fixed Ray with an intense stare – not threatening, not angry, just focused. Whatever was in that stare, it did the trick. Ray slowly slackened, he unclenched his fist, and all the fight went out of him.
Nelson let a smile start to spread across his face and let go of Ray’s wrist.
‘I got a first-aid kit somewhere round de back,’ he said, indicated that Ray was to follow him. ‘I’ll sort you out.’ He looked around at the throng of silent drinkers all staring at him, and his smile broadened into a grin. ‘You boys is gonna have go tirsty for few minutes. Nursey Nelson has a patient to attend to.’
Sam turned away, meaning to go after Annie, but found Gene blocking him.
‘Well go on then, Tyler,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘Go after her. And when you catch up with her, give her a message from me.’
‘I think I know what it is,’ said Sam, his shoulders sagging.
‘I think you probably do,’ said Gene. ‘With immediate effect, Tyler. She don’t even come back to clear out her desk.’
‘You can’t do that, Guv.’
‘I’m DCI Gene flamin’ Hunt, sunshine, so I think you’ll find I can. Gross misconduct. Assault of a fellow officer. Woeful lack of action in the chest-and-leg departments. More than enough to render her contract with CID somewhere on the level of a sheet of used Andrex. Tell your crumpet from me, Tyler. She. Is. Out.’
Sam pushed his way past the gawping drinkers, crashed through the doors and headed out into the night in pursuit of ex-copper Annie Cartwright.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: DEAD TONE
It was the sound of crying that drew Sam’s attention to her. Annie was standing under the smothering orange glow of a sodium street lamp with her face buried in her hands, standing out sharply against the deep darkness of the Manchester night.
Sam rushed up to her – and stopped short. His instinct was to put his arms around her, tell her over and over that it was all right, that he understood, but she was volatile tonight, wound up and wired. He feared she would react badly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was angry with Ray. That’s what made me say what I said.’
Without looking at him, Annie snivelled, ‘You knew all along, didn’t you.’
‘Yes. But I didn’t want to say because … I wanted you to find out for yourself, in your own way, in your own time.’
‘I think I knew from the start, deep down. I think I always knew he were me dad.’
Annie turned and looked at him with bloodshot eyes, her face streaked with tears.
‘Is anything real?’ she asked, her voice cracked and clogged with emotion.
Sam nodded.
With a big, snotty sniff, she said, ‘And you? Are you real, Sam? Because I don’t … I just don’t know anymore!’
Sam hesitated no longer. He flung his arms around her like he meant to crush her to a pulp. And in return, she held on to him, like she was clinging to floating wreckage.
Her voice muffled against Sam’s jacket, she said gently: ‘Ray. Is he ...?’
‘Shocked more than hurt,’ Sam assured her.
‘I glassed him, Sam.’
‘He asked for it. Perhaps it was a little over the top, Annie, but he most definitely asked for it.’
‘I suppose the Guv’ll fire me.’
‘I’ll straighten everything out with him, I promise.’
‘Don’t. I’m not going back. I’m finished with all that.’
Sam kissed the top of her head: ‘You’re just upset. You’ll feel differently about it later.’
‘No, I won’t. Because …’
Sam waited, but Annie said nothing for a long time.
‘We can’t stand here in the street forever,’ he said eventually. ‘Why don’t you let me take you to my place. It’s not far.’
‘I won’t go back because I see there’s no point now,’ Annie said, carrying on like there had been no pause. ‘There’s no point in me being a copper anymore.’
‘There’s every point in you being a copper, Annie. And me too. It’s what we’re here for.’
But Annie shook her head, and very quietly she said, ‘We’re dead, Sam.’
‘Not as dead as you think,’ Sam replied, gently rubbing her back to soothe her.
‘Then what the hell are we? I don’t understand. What are we?’
�
�Difficult question, Annie. This place is all difficult questions. But it’s not so bad here, is it? Not much different from being alive? Better, I reckon.’
‘Is this heaven or hell?’
‘Neither. I don’t think it works like that.’
‘Is my dad here somewhere?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘Why are we here?’
‘I think it’s to clear up unfinished business from our other lives. But don’t ask me to explain much more that that because, believe me Annie, I don’t know.’
‘Are we here forever?’
‘No. We’re supposed to do what we have to do then move on.’
‘Move on where?’
Sam recalled Nelson opening the door behind the bar at the Railway Arms and revealing a shining plane and the promise of wonders beyond. And yet that glittering vision had been only the merest outskirts of the future that awaited him and Annie together, if only they could reach it.
‘The place we’re going to go to is …’ Sam looked for the right words. ‘It’s somewhere really …’
‘Really what?’
‘Really smashing, Annie.’
‘And will we be safe there?’
‘Yes. Totally. Forever. All we have to do is get there.’
Annie lifted her face to look at him. Her tear-streaked cheeks were bloodless.
‘But we’re not safe here, are we,’ she said.
How much did she know? Did Annie now remember Clive Gould, and the things he did to her? Did she remember the beatings and the abuse she endured at his hands? Did she remember how it ended?
I don’t want to tell her what I saw today, Sam thought. I don’t want to tell her about Gould leaping onto Carroll like some sort of vampire. She’s dealing with too much tonight. Later. I’ll tell her later. For now, she needs to feel safe, to feel loved.
Sam held her tightly to him. Out here in this cold, dark, street, standing beneath the glow of the orange street light, was not the time or place for this conversation.
‘I’m taking you home now,’ he said. ‘My flat’s a dump, but it’s still better than the pavement. I’ve got some whisky in the cupboard. It’ll calm your nerves. Then we can sit and talk, and talk all night, if that’s what you need.’
‘I just want to feel safe again,’ Annie said, fresh tears threatening to well up. ‘I want us both to feel safe. Because we’re not, are we. There’s something out there. I don’t know what it is, but I know it wants to hurt you, Sam … and then it wants to come for me.’
He crushed her in a protective bear-hug, not wanting ever to let her go.
‘All these things you’ve been learning,’ Sam said softly, ‘they’ve made you suffer. But you’ve suffered enough. I want you to find peace of mind, Annie – even if it’s just for one night. Come on. Let’s go.’
Hooking his arm around Annie, Sam carefully led her out from under the street lamp and away along the dark pavement. Momentarily, he glanced back at the smoky lights of the Railway Arms – and there, silhouetted in the doorway, was a barrel-chested figure in a camel hair coat, watching in silence, one thumb hooked into his belt, a cigarette flaring red against the unreadable shadow of his face.
Sam turned his back on Gene, and took Annie home.
Sam unlocked the front door of his flat, reached in, and flipped the light switch. The yellowing bulb revealed a brown carpet with ingrained dirt; beige, flower-pattern wallpaper; a ghastly fold-out bed with a boxy, coffin-like headboard and a portable TV with chunky buttons and a whopping great tuning dial stuck on the front.
‘Sit yourself down,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll fix us both a drink.’
With the dazed face and stiff movements of a sleep walker, Annie crossed to the bed and perched gingerly on it. Sam rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, rinsed out a couple of tumblers, and dug out a half-empty bottle of a Bell’s.
‘Feel the glass between your fingers,’ he said softly, pressing the tumbler into her hand. ‘It’s still wet from the tap water. You feel it? You feel the cold water on your skin?’
He poured Scotch into the glass.
‘Hear that whisky going in? See how the light catches it?’
Annie said nothing.
‘Take a sip,’ Sam said. ‘Go on. Drink it.’
After a pause, she did.
‘You taste that?’ he said, watching her face carefully. ‘You feel the bite of it against your tongue? You feel the burn as it goes down? That’s real, Annie. That’s life.’
‘But we’re not alive,’ Annie said softly.
‘Then you can’t feel that glass in your hand, or taste that whisky. Only you can. And so can I.’
Sam downed his own drink in a single go and poured out a refill.
‘Light and dark, pain and pleasure, hope and fear,’ he said. ‘You experience all those things here. We all do. That’s not death, Annie. Death is numbness. Death is oblivion.’
He recalled the year 2006, the year he had come from, the year he had briefly returned to in the mistaken belief that it was home. A climate controlled, smoke-free office. Sober, fresh-faced work colleagues, each with their laptop, bluetooth device, and BlackBerry. A clean, modern boardroom with ergonomic chairs to prevent backache. Sam playing with a pen, unaware that he was repeatedly driving the point through the skin on the palm of his hand. Painless blood. Emotional flatline. Numbness. Oblivion.
‘This place isn’t death, Annie,’ he said. ‘It’s loud, and it stinks, and it’s dangerous and wonderful and shitty and strange and … and alive. And you and me, we have hearts that are beating. That’s not death. I’ve been here long enough to know that life and death aren’t as clear cut as we used to think. If you can feel; if you can think; if you can love somebody – how the hell can that be death?’
He set aside his glass and sat down beside her on the bed, making the wretched springs creak.
‘I’m really frightened, Sam,’ Annie said. ‘Something’s after us. I almost know what it is, what it’s called, but … I can’t quite remember …’
A sudden high-pitched whine cut through the room, making them both jump. Sam leapt to his feet, wincing at the sound.
Across the room, the TV had switched itself on. The test card was showing on the screen – the girl with the red headband smiling inscrutably over her shoulder as she played her eternal game of noughts-and-crosses with her clown-faced doll. At full volume, the dead tone of shutdown was screaming out, making the little speaker in the set buzz and rattle.
Sam strode over and yanked the plug from the socket. The picture remained, the dead tone continue to howl out.
‘Get out of here, you little brat!’ Sam shouted, and he thwacked the set with the flat of his hand. Sound and picture went dead instantly. It was like the TV set was sulking.
Annie’s face was white, her eyes round and frightened as she stared at the now-dark TV screen.
‘I dreamt that,’ she said in a drained voice. ‘The other night. The little girl in the test card … She said something to me … something horrid …’
‘Ignore her, she’s just a manipulative bitch trying to mess with your head,’ said Sam. He gave the set another slap for good measure and then crossed back to Annie, who had knocked back her drink, refilled her glass, and knocked that back too.
‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ Sam said. ‘For both of us. Let’s just rest. I need it. So do you.’
‘Yes. I do. I really do.’
They lay together on the bed, fully clothed except for their shoes, as chaste as brother and sister. Annie nestled her head against the crook of his neck.
‘I do love you, you know, Sam,’ she said, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible.
‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear,’ he whispered back.
But even as he spoke, he saw that Annie’s eyes were closed, her breathing soft and shallow, her troubled mind drifting away into the realm of dreams.
‘Good idea, Annie,’ Sam whispered. ‘I think I�
�ll join you.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DREAMS OF LIFE
‘Darling, I’m home!’
Coming through the newly double-glazed sliding porch, Sam set down his leather briefcase, hooked his bowler hat on the rack on the wall, and slipped off his shoes, mindful of the freshly vacuumed polyester carpet.
Annie appeared in the kitchen doorway dressed in her floral pinny. She walked with her hands held up, like she was at gunpoint. They were covered in flour.
‘You’re late!’ she called to him.
‘I’m sorry, darling. Bit of a hold up on the five forty-seven. Leopards on the track at Macclesfield, I think.’
‘Oh, you!’
Sam kissed her on the cheek. She kept her floury hands well away from his jacket.
‘Something smells scrumptious, darling, and not just your Charlie.’
‘Chicken pie, roast potatoes, and a homemade white sauce,’ Annie said proudly.
‘It doesn’t get much better than that!’
He checked the letters that sat in the letter rack by the door. Bills, bills, bills … and one addressed to Annie, with very neat writing on the envelope.
‘For you,’ he said, holding it out to her.
‘I didn’t spot it,’ Annie said, peering at it. ‘Don’t know the handwriting.’
Sam glanced at the back: ‘The return address just says “Trencher’s”. Where’s that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, darling. I don’t have time for this, I’m up to the elbows in pastry.’
Annie wouldn’t touch the envelope with her floury hands, so Sam popped the letter under her arm.
‘I’ll open it when I’m cleaned up,’ she said, heading back to the kitchen. ‘You go and relax, darling.’
‘All right, darling.’
Sam nipped into the lounge and fixed himself a tonic and Gordon’s from the mini-bar.
From the kitchen, Annie called through to him, ‘Oh, and I’m also doing asparagus.’
Using plastic tongs to drop ice cubes into his glass, Sam called back to her, ‘Asparagus, eh? It’s only C.J. and his wife coming over, darling, not Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon!’
‘I want to make a good impression!’ she replied, clattering about by the oven. ‘I’m going to serve prawn vol-au-vents for starters, and I’ve got an arctic roll for desert, but it’s a really posh one with special nuts in it. Pinocchios, or something. And I’ve got three bottles of Blue Nun in the fridge.’
