by David Mark
Against the darkening sky sits the house. Broodingly wealthy and eccentrically frayed around the edges.
‘Take it easy,’ he says to himself, as a prickling patch of sweat forms between his shoulder blades. Wishes he looked more like a police officer. In his stinking rugby shirt, threadbare jeans and increasingly ragged designer coat, he looks more like a tramp who’s robbed a fancy-dress shop.
A movement behind him makes him turn. Another car is pulling into the driveway.
McAvoy does his best to fasten his shirt by its one remaining button but concedes defeat as it comes off in his hand.
He approaches the other vehicle, which is occupied by two men. One is perhaps in his fifties. He has greying hair and sharp, hawk-like features. The other is a younger man. Big, with a GI Joe-style crew cut.
He spins as a sound comes from the house.
A curvy, middle-aged woman in an expensive dress, black raincoat and leather boots emerges from the large oak double doors beneath the granite portico at the front of the house. She has blonde hair running to grey, cut into a layered bob. She is striking, though there is a sagginess to her face that suggests a melted beauty; that if she could just be twisted tight from the scalp, she would be vivacious and desirable once more.
The older man comes round from the driver’s side. He is wearing a pair of jeans, an expensive pink shirt and a tweed jacket beneath a padded coat. A pair of glasses hangs on a chain around his neck and his face is so closely shaven that the skin looks raw and painfully abraded.
He extends a hand as he approaches and a gold watch glitters at his wrist. He jerks his jaw out a little, as if to say hello.
‘You McAvoy?’
‘Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy. Humberside Police Serious and Organised Crime Unit. Lieutenant Colonel Montague Emms, I presume?’
The other man gives a grin. ‘Not any more,’ he says. ‘Not the rank, anyway. I’m still Montague Emms, but I hate that, so call me Sparky. Everybody else does. Even the lad Armstrong, here.’
Emms extends a hand. McAvoy finds a calloused, rough palm and fingers. Gives a subtle roll of his thumb upon the back of the proffered hand and feels a set of knuckles that have been broken and inexpertly set.
Emms gestures in the direction of the house. ‘Shall we?’
The woman in the doorway retreats inside as they approach. Emms makes a show of having forgotten something obvious and turns back to the soldier. ‘Get your stuff, son. The boys will be back soon to show you where you’re going. There’s a barn and stables down that track to your left if you want to keep warm.’
He turns back to McAvoy before Armstrong can even snap off a salute.
‘New recruit?’ asks McAvoy as they pass through the doors.
‘Possibly,’ says Emms, who, up close, is taller than McAvoy has realised. He walks with a straight back and firm, confident steps.
‘Lovely place,’ says McAvoy conversationally as they pause in the hallway. A few steps ahead, the woman is opening a wooden door set in an oak-panelled wall. She smiles at them both, pushes the door back as far as it will go, and then steps back.
‘Guess we’re going in my study,’ says Emms lightly. ‘That’s the wife, by the way. Ellen. Looks after me. Don’t know where I’d be without her.’
‘I’ve got one of those,’ says McAvoy, before he can help himself.
‘A good woman’s worth her weight in gold,’ says Emms, and the two exchange a look that suggests they share a wisdom and truism that not many other men have learned. McAvoy finds himself warming to the man.
‘Right, I’ll just go rustle us up a pot of tea. You make yourself comfortable in my study and I’ll be back in a jiff. Tea, yes? You don’t strike me as a coffee drinker.’
‘Is that racial stereotyping, sir?’ asks McAvoy, with enough of a smile to show he’s joking.
‘Ha!’ says Emms, throwing his head back.
Emms is still laughing as he strides away, turning left at a door opposite the study and leaving a trail of muddy bootprints on the wooden floor.
McAvoy has to bow his head slightly as he enters the study. The house must be at least three centuries old, and he knows from experience that doorways then were built for a smaller race.
It’s a modest, rectangular room, with a large sash window taking up almost the whole of the far wall. Two computers and three telephones sit on an antique desk, which is littered with typed documents and what look like haphazardly folded architectural blueprints.
On the desk, in an ornate gold frame, is a pen-and-ink drawing. McAvoy has to squint to make it out. A face or a form? A landscape? It seems to have been scribbled and scrawled, but upon closer inspection he sees that each and every line has been individually etched. It is a bewildering piece of haphazard beauty that McAvoy wishes he better understood.
The light from the window is insufficient to illuminate the room, so McAvoy reaches up and flips an old-fashioned metal light switch. The bulb flickers into life.
McAvoy finds himself staring at an entire wall of photographs. Squares of corkboard have been nailed up and their surfaces are adorned with snaps of smiling, grinning men in military fatigues. McAvoy examines the images. There must be hundreds of men here. Sitting on tanks. Giving thumbs-up on dusty, sun-baked runways. Overloaded with packs and guns, helmets and radio equipment, lounging in the backs of open-top Jeeps or stripped to the waist and greasy with exertion, a football between their legs and sand on their boots. Some of the images must be thirty years old. In some, the moustaches of the officers and the poor, grainy quality of the images put McAvoy in mind of footage he has seen of the Falklands War. He wishes he’d done more research on Emms’s military career before he asked Feasby to arrange this meeting. Wishes he knew what the fuck he was doing here.
‘Ah, my wall of shame,’ says Emms, making McAvoy turn round sharply as he emerges in the doorway holding two mugs of tea. McAvoy doesn’t know why, but he’d rather expected a pot on a tray, positioned between elegant cups and saucers. Instead, into his hand is thrust a mug bearing a company logo. Magellan Strategies.
‘I was just admiring …’
‘Yes, yes,’ says Emms, happily enough. ‘Those are the boys and girls who’ve served under me. Mostly boys, if I’m honest. And not all of them. But as many as I could find. Ellen thinks I’m daft. Tells me that I should have pictures of the grandchildren up in here, but I can’t bring myself to take them down.’
‘You must miss it.’
‘Soldiering? Yes and no. I did twenty-eight years. Enough to scratch any itch. And I’m still on the scene, as it were. Still got plenty to keep me busy.’
‘You set up the company when you were discharged, did you?’
‘Just about. Made the right contacts while I was working towards retirement, so to speak. But things just landed right. And it’s not just me, you understand. I had partners at first. Board of directors now we’re established. All very proper and above board. I don’t even think they need me any more. I’ve got an honorary title and they still ask me to oil a few wheels, but we’re not doing so badly.’
‘You’re still involved in recruitment, though?’ asks McAvoy, gesturing back towards the door, where he imagines Armstrong to be standing rigidly at attention, as the fine rain that has begun to drift past the window soaks him to the skin.
‘Oh, he’s the son of an old pal of mine,’ says Emms, plonking himself down in the armchair and taking a swig of tea. ‘Didn’t really take to the regular army. Some don’t. He lost a couple of mates first tour. Insurgents. Opened fire while him and two pals were handing out sweets to a bunch of kids. Armstrong ran. His mates didn’t. There was a video on the internet for a while of what happened to them. The worst. Not a mark on Armstrong but it hurt him. Pointlessness of it, you see? I’ll never understand it myself and we make a living as experts in these places. Managed to get him a discharge and we’re going to try him out. I’ve got our assistant head of recruitment up here this weekend with a couple of the oth
er new boys. They’re out on a training run right now.’
‘You didn’t let Armstrong in the house,’ says McAvoy, turning away from the photographs to fix Emms with a deep stare.
‘If your wife looked like mine, would you fill your house with soldiers?’ Emms says it with a laugh, but McAvoy can tell he is serious.
‘Good point,’ he says.
After a pause, Emms shrugs and appears ready to get down to business. ‘So,’ he says, as McAvoy takes a seat in the wooden chair. ‘You wanted to talk about Anne.’
McAvoy looks away from the older man’s friendly, alert face. Suddenly, the silliness of it all hits him like a fist. He wants to be able to tell him something with substance. Something that justifies this man’s time. Justifies his own decision to drive into the middle of bloody nowhere.
‘Mr Emms …’
‘Sparky,’ he corrects.
‘About that …,’ he says, grateful for the reprieve.
‘Long story, told short. When I was a young officer I came up with a brilliant time-saving device ahead of a night out. Decided to dry my hair while still in the bath. One day, dropped the bloody hair-drier. Danced like a bloody fish on dry land for about five minutes until a pal switched the thing off. Almost cooked myself. Been Sparky ever since.’
McAvoy breathes out, impressed and appalled. ‘Ouch.’
He starts his explanation again.
‘Anyway, as I’m sure Mr Feasby said when he called, I’m involved in the investigation into Daphne Cotton’s death. Are you aware of the case?’
‘Bad business,’ says Emms, closing his eyes. ‘Poor girl.’
‘Yes.’
McAvoy pauses. Decides to plump for honesty.
‘I was there when it happened. I heard the screams. Got there a minute too late. Got knocked down by the man who did it.’
Emms simply nods. His eyes speak volumes.
‘In the wake of that crime, I’ve been looking into several other incidents. Not obviously connected, but certainly with a link that bears examination.’
‘Oh yes?’ Emms looks interested.
‘The link between the victims is their survival,’ says McAvoy. ‘Survival of an incident that killed everybody else. A former trawlerman who made it home alive when thirty-odd mates drowned was found dead in a lifeboat off the coast of Iceland just over a week ago. A bloke who set fire to his own house and killed his family was burned to death in a room at Hull Royal Infirmary. A woman who was almost butchered by a serial killer was attacked in exactly the same way in Grimsby.’
McAvoy drops his head to his hands.
‘I just don’t want Anne Montrose to be another victim.’
Emms says nothing for a while. He takes another slurp of his tea. Looks up at his photographs and then gives a nod.
‘I see where you’re coming from. Did I not hear they had somebody for that, though? Some writer bloke. Pissed off at the world, and whatnot.’
‘Russ Chandler has been charged, yes.’
A slow smile spreads across Emms’s face. ‘But you’re not convinced.’
‘I believe there are still avenues to be explored.’
‘I bet you’re going to be popular.’
‘I don’t care about being popular. I want to make sure the right person is locked up. I want to make sure nobody else gets hurt.’
‘Very commendable,’ says Emms. ‘Why Anne?’
‘She’s one of many,’ says McAvoy, looking through the glass as the landscape darkens and the rain begins to billow like unfastened sails. ‘But it fits, I suppose. I don’t know how he’s choosing them. I don’t know why he’s doing it. But …’
‘But …’
McAvoy balls his fists as he blurts out to this virtual stranger the one thought that makes him a better policeman than those around him. ‘Because if I was doing it, she’d be the one I’d do next.’
‘Method actor, are you?’
‘What?’
‘You know, De Niro and Pacino. Put yourself in the mind of the character, yeah? Live like them. Think like them. Get inside their heads, and whatnot.’
‘I don’t know if I—’
‘Makes sense,’ says Emms. ‘Well, at least I can put your mind at rest.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Anne Montrose. If you’re right about this bastard, he’s out to get people who survived properly. Cheated death, or however you want to see it. Anne didn’t. Anne’s never woken up. She’s been in a coma since it happened. She’s not a survivor. She’s just got a pulse.’
McAvoy nods, rubbing his face with his hands. He realises how unshaven he is.
‘Could you at least tell me a little about the background? What happened. Your relationship. Why the bills come to you.’
Emms raises his glasses from the chair around his neck and puts them on. Examines McAvoy with a collector’s gaze.
‘I barely knew Anne,’ he says, and shrugs. ‘She was a nice woman, from what I’m told. Loved kids. Real sweetheart. Wouldn’t get out when it made sense to. Thought she could do some good. Wrong place, wrong time. Arranged a trip for the school where she was helping and the bus blew up the second the driver turned the key. Anne was still in the open doorway, waving to the other teachers. The blast threw her clear but she hit her head. Never woke up.’
‘But why you? Why did your company get involved?’
Emms blows a long, sustained sigh that turns into a raspberry on his wet lips. He stands up and crosses to his picture walls. Pulls down an image that has been pinned in the top right corner of the boards.
‘Him,’ he says, showing McAvoy the picture.
McAvoy looks at an image of two smiling men. One is stripped to the waist, sweat greasing a boxer’s torso, and one beefy arm thrown round the neck of a tall, rangy man in combat fatigues. McAvoy squints and turns to Emms.
‘That you?’
Emms nods. ‘A younger version, anyway. Balkans. Ninety-five, maybe? I should really date these things.’
‘And the other man?’
‘Simeon Gibbons. Major, by the time he got his discharge. Trained as a chaplain but joined the front line.’
McAvoy waits expectantly.
Emms cocks an eyebrow. ‘Anne Montrose’s fiancé.’
‘And your relationship to Major Gibbons?’
Emms gives a rueful laugh. ‘Call it brothers-in-arms. He was my best officer. Best friend, if such a thing can exist. I wanted him to come into the security business with me but we had a difference of opinion over all that. Call it a clash of ideals. He said he wouldn’t be a mercenary. I told him that we were helping people. Building something special. Saving lives. He said Anne would do that for free. It was an argument neither of us was going to win. So he stayed in the army. I set up Magellan.’
‘And Anne?’
‘He met her in some godforsaken hole in Iraq. Fell head over heels. He’s not the sort to do that, Simeon. He’s a controlled sort of chap. Keeps it all in. Has his beliefs and won’t change them. Christian man. Fell for Anne like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘So when the explosion happened …’
Emms shrugs. ‘I heard about it from another old pal. Thought the least I could do for an old mate was to keep the press away. Easily done, to be honest. Don’t expect me to feel bad for paying off a journalist, Sergeant.’
McAvoy shakes his head. ‘I don’t. I understand.’
‘Gibbo lost his mind over it. Couldn’t reconcile it. It’s hard to describe to people who have never been there. To war, I mean. Over there. Under the sun. The remoteness. You start questioning everything. You start seeing the world differently. People find religion, or lose it. Happens to the best of us, and when he lost Anne, it kind of broke him open. I don’t know what filled him up. He wouldn’t speak to his old mates. Wouldn’t go home. Even when I had her flown back to the UK … even when I got her in the private facility, got her round-the-clock care …’
Emms looks down at the photograph in his lap. Looks into the fa
ce of an old friend who lost his mind when his heart was broken.
‘Was he discharged?’
‘Didn’t get the chance,’ says Emms, looking up. ‘Chunk of metal from a roadside bomb tore through his throat not long after. He bled to death on the side of the road in Basra. Should never have been cleared for active service in the first place.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was such a waste. Such a beautiful man.’ He reaches back. Picks up the pen-and-ink drawing from the desk. Holds it up to show McAvoy. ‘Talented, too.’
He unclips the frame and pulls out a piece of expensive, cream-coloured card. It’s signed on the back. Emms closes his eyes as he regards it and McAvoy suddenly feels intrusive and out of place.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You said.’
Silence falls in the small room. It’s only mid-afternoon but the darkness is sliding towards the floor like a blind.
‘And you still pay her bills?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
McAvoy doesn’t have to think about it. He knows he would bankrupt himself to care for a stranger.
‘I’ll put two of the boys on a guard detail at Anne’s bedside. Just to be on the safe side. Phone me when you think this is at an end.’
To break the air of misery that’s fallen, Emms turns to the window. ‘Never stops,’ he says.
‘Sorry?’
‘The rain. I bought this house for Ellen. She always wanted to be lady of the manor. Grew up reading the Brontë sisters and fancying Heathcliff. Had this romantic notion about windswept moors and rain-lashed hillsides. And she’s got ’em. Just bloody depressing, if you ask me. She’s wanting a horse next. I think she’s got a fancy for meeting some dusky chap in riding breeches out on a hillside. She’s got a lovely mind for that kind of thing.’
McAvoy gives a smile and enjoys the feeling. ‘My Roisin’s like that. Head full of lovely pictures.’
‘Hard to measure up, isn’t it?’
McAvoy nods, and both men share a moment of something that feels uncannily like friendship.
