by David Mark
“Story of my life,” I smile, and then lean in to whisper in her ear. “I’m never first to come.”
She giggles, and blushes, and I’m about to give her a little cuddle when I remember the gun and decide not to risk it. “Is he here yet?” I ask, quietly.
“The defendant?”
“Yes, Shane Cadbury. He’s coming from Wakefield Nick, isn’t he? They’ll never get him here on time. Never bloody do. Judge Skelton goes spare with ’em every time and they still turn up half an hour late.”
“The family haven’t turned up yet either. If you want to go for a coffee I’ll give you a shout when they arrive.” She smiles at me, eager to please. Then she spoils it, cocking her head and looking all wistful and sincere. “Everything sorted out with your sister?” she asks.
She may as well have slapped me.
“Same bloody story,” I say, automatically. “Don’t worry about it.”
I curse myself. Christ, why did I tell Sal about Kerry? Why tell anyone? I don’t know if I’m ashamed of Kerry, or ashamed of myself, or if there’s no shame there at all. I don’t know if it’s all my fault, but I do know it’s my responsibility.
“I’ll get it sorted,” I mumble, mostly to myself. I turn away as I say it, so she doesn’t see the look that crosses my face as I think about my little sister. The baby of the family and its brightest star, right up until the moment I did what I did.
She’s smacked up to the eyeballs, most days. Bruises around every vein. Hasn’t eaten anything but cigarettes and cheap alcohol in weeks. She’s wretched when I think of her. Painfully thin. Blue veins traceable through translucent skin. Ribs cutting her from the inside. Nothing in her eyes. She’s drooling, gently, into her blonde hair; legs draped over her landlord’s shoulders or wrapped around her dealer’s waist.
She’s almost slid too far, has Kerry. She’s almost beyond my reach. Almost too far gone to pull back.
Suddenly my head is full of her, full of images that the pills have always succeeded in keeping blurry and peripheral.
Kerry. The bright girl with the high cheekbones and strong, slender limbs, who loved animals and birds and flowers and trees, and who wanted to save the world, and who loved her brother more than anything. Kerry, who didn’t turn from me when I did what I did. Kerry, who tried to keep us all together, and who found that the occasional spliff helped her keep her own monsters quiet. Kerry. Who got in with the wrong people when her brother was away, and never really came back.
“I’m off next week, if you want to pay me a house call,” says Sal, with the same hopeful expression she has used on me for as long as I’ve known her.
“I’ll think about it, princess,” I say, with a wink that chases away my thoughts. “I’ll think good and hard.”
I let my hand brush her waist as I turn away and head up the winding stairs to the first floor. She wriggles like a happy cat.
The stairs are in the middle of a circular room. Consultation rooms, corridors, and the courtrooms, all lead off the main landing. A big window faces out onto the street, with a row of padded seats in front of it, and a metal headboard that makes quite a noise when you smack it as you sit down. Circular padded chairs, all facing outwards, are arranged haphazardly across the rest of the floor space. The place is almost deserted at this early hour. I smile hello at a couple of ushers in their black gowns as I tramp over to the window and stare out past the centuries-old splendour of St Mary’s Church and its bell tower blackened by the smoke and fog.
I stare down at the forecourt, where three of the Hull Mail reporters have joined Garry and the others. The Mail always sends reporters mob-handed for the big cases. I’ll be doing this on my own. It took me a long while to persuade the Press Association there was a need for an office in Hull, but after they spent most of the previous year sending lads over from York and Leeds to cover the umpteen murders that had taken place, they decided it would be cheaper to have me based here full time. I don’t have an office, and the long-promised laptop has yet to arrive, so I do things the old-fashioned way, with a notepad and a telephone, ringing my stories across direct to the copytakers. I’ve only been on the payroll four months, but they seem happy with me. The money is steady, and a damn sight better than when I was freelance; a hooker without the benefits of a pimp.
I slump down in one of the chairs, careful not to bang my skull on the inexplicable metal head rest. Pick up somebody else’s Daily Star. Look at the headlines. Feel my head fall and the familiar synapses of depression and despair flaring in my skull. Such insipid shit. Such bland and meaningless fucking bollocks, and me a fucking star at creating it. No-mark celebrity shags another. Reality TV show nobody cares about might be rigged. Politicians lying. NHS failing to meet targets. Police raiding the wrong mosque and now appealing for calm in the Muslim community. Shit without flavour. Pain without feeling. Death, documented by people who don’t know how it tastes.
I light a cigarette, and allow myself the ghost of a smile as I flip the wheel on the Zippo lighter, and let the sensation catapult me back to the mayhem of last night. I don’t flinch from the memories. The shudder that passes through my body is exhilarating. I move my arm and through the lining of my coat, allow the gun to fall into the crook of my elbow. I hold it like a cuddly toy, a source of comfort.
I could have been dead today. I could have been floating down towards the Trent with mud in my pockets, my face white and bloated, leaves in my mouth and dirt in my hair.
5
“I’ve never heard that word before,” says McAvoy, a little awestruck, a little afraid. He glances across at Roisin, hunkered down inside the collar of his waterproof. She’s driving, jewelled fingers on the steering wheel, staring across the big empty car park, her vision given bars by her big false eyelashes. The windscreen wipers screech across the rain-smeared glass. It’s a less offensive sound than the stream of Traveller invective that she unleashed at the Boothferry Road roundabout not long before.
“Which word?” she asks, amused, and flicks a glance in his direction.
“Most of them, actually,” says McAvoy, considering. Roisin is rarely given to temper but when the outbursts come, it seems that somebody has mixed magnesium with potassium chlorate. She explodes, and burns out with an extraordinary intensity. McAvoy finds it frightening and volatile and absolutely beautiful, just like the rest of her. He treats her like a rogue firework: afraid to go near without a bucket of sand. She frequently tells him he’s an eejit, shaking her head at a joke that only she seems to understand. McAvoy, already baffled that somebody like her could truly love somebody like him, hopes that whatever the joke is, it continues to please her.
“What was it I said?” she asks, with a smile that it is safe to approach. “It just comes out, like the songs I sing Fin. It’s in your soul – you know. English is the wrong language for a Traveller – we’re poets.”
“I think I picked up ‘dinlaw’, ‘bawlaw’ and ‘transpirate mish’ and I know enough to guess I shouldn’t ask for a direct translation.”
Roisin grins. McAvoy puts his hand on hers and gives it a gentle squeeze. Rolls her wedding ring around under his big, clean fingers. It was her grandmother’s, given to McAvoy to present to his bride when Papa Teague saw the pitiful specimen that McAvoy had used all of his savings to acquire. The ring on her finger is three hundred years old, studded with rubies and sapphires. He’s always afraid somebody will see it and presume him to be a successful, wealthy man. When he pictures himself – bumbling, clumsy, inert with indecision – he is painfully aware how poorly he measures up.
He looks across at the woods that ring the car park and feels his chest clench as he considers what he hopes to find within. He wonders what it says about him, how despicable a person he must be, that he sees a potential death as an opportunity to curry favour with the boss who values him so little. He hears himself start to prattle. “I can drive back, if you’d prefer. The traffic at this time of day – well, I’m still getting used to it. There d
oesn’t seem to be any sense to the way they built this city.” He shakes his head. “Newland Avenue – the one with the nice cafés. Rumour has it they got the plans for the parking spaces upside down. Outside Sainsbury’s you have to go past the space, then indicate, and reverse it at a 270-degree angle. I’ll take you there. It’s very entertaining…”
Roisin laughs, all lip gloss and white teeth. She has a stud in her top lip and a succession of large hooped rings in her dainty earlobes. She’s wearing a top that doesn’t cover her midriff, beneath a velour tracksuit top. McAvoy, sitting in the passenger seat in a blue Tesco suit and shabby raincoat, feels like a carthorse next to a unicorn.
“Have we been here?” asks Roisin, pulling in. She glances across the mostly-empty car park at the hugeness of the Humber Bridge. “We’ve walked that, I remember. Was I pregnant? Bloody freezing but an amazing view. Aye, we came here. Cliffs and trees, yeah? You told me about the cliffs. They’re white and made of chalk, which is why the locals call it Little Switzerland. See, I remember stuff. I love it when you tell me things.”
“Really?”
“Yes, ye fecking eejit.”
McAvoy looks into the back seat, where Fin, strapped into the car seat, is looking around, mildly intrigued. He catches his dad’s eye. “Did Mammy upset the other driver?”
McAvoy nods, and puts a finger to his lips. “It was the other driver’s fault, Fin. Mammy is an excellent driver. He shouldn’t have been so worried about his precious Audi. As Mammy told him, there was loads of room.”
“Too right there fecking was,” growls Roisin, re-applying lip gloss in the rear-view mirror. She smacks her lips, then blows her son a kiss. Then she gives her attention to her husband. “Go on then. Be a police officer. Do your questions and stuff. They’re ladies – you’ll have them eating out of your lap.”
McAvoy feels his ears go pink. “It’s hand, Ro…”
“Aye, whatever,” she grins, and gives a full, throaty laugh. She leans over, quick as a kingfisher taking prey, and kisses him full on the mouth. He feels her warmth. Tastes her. Feels her climb inside him and settle down: a fox slinking into the warmth of a familiar burrow.
The cold wind swirls around him as he makes his way across the car park towards the row of units. There’s a little shop, and an information centre, but they’re both closed for the winter. The café is the only building with its lights on. There are some white plastic tables dotted around outside for anybody keen to sit in a car park in the drizzle, but none are occupied. He can make out a couple of customers inside: hunch-backed, windblown characters, protecting plates of fried food and mugs of tea as if they were vultures guarding a carcass.
The door opens. Framed in the warm yellow light that spills from the café, is a small, dark-haired woman. She’s the same height as Roisin, but more amply proportioned. She’s got a cigarette in her left hand and a Styrofoam cup in her right. With her big sunglasses, leather jacket and biker boots, she looks like a hungover rock star. She inches her dark glasses down her nose as she considers him. He notices bangles on her wrist. She’s wearing hooped earrings too, though they are not as extravagant as his wife’s. She doesn’t look dissimilar to Roisin’s mum, though he decides he should keep this, and every other helpful observation, to himself. He suddenly recognises her. He’s seen her before, bustling her way out of a meeting room at Queen’s Gardens, glaring at a manila folder held in fingers locked as if in death. It’s something about the set of the jaw. She’s attractive, though he hates himself at once for allowing the thought to occur. She’s a senior officer from across the river. Grimsby Nick. Ran a CID unit looking into cold cases until budget cuts put a stop to it. Took time out just as he was arriving in Hull – some ‘unnamed personal drama’ that stalled a stellar career. He stops as if confronted by a childhood hero.
“You’re a big old piece of policeman,” she says, sucking her lower lip and nodding, approvingly. “I’ve been reading your name off your business card. Still can’t get it right, so I’ll call you ‘Sergeant’. You can call me ‘Guv’ or ‘Boss’, or ‘sweetheart’ if you want a swift headbutt to the groin.”
McAvoy feels all the breath rush out of him. He’s used to feeling out of his depth, but in the presence of this small, daunting woman, he’s absolutely drowning.
“I’m Aector McAvoy,” he says, and is pretty sure he’s right. “The owner – she called me – said there had been an unusual discovery…”
She gives a bark of laughter. “Unusual? Yes, that would be about right, Sergeant. Two bodies, one with a bullet in his head and the other without much head to speak of? Yeah, that’s pretty unusual.”
McAvoy takes a moment to process things. If he were wearing a hat, he would take it off and clutch it to his chest. His face becomes solemn and filled with sadness. He licks dry lips, and looks down at the floor.
“Ha!” laughs the DCI. “Jesus, Sergeant, did you go to Stagecoach as a child? Best bloody amateur dramatics I’ve seen in an age.”
McAvoy snaps his head up, a hard look briefly gripping his face before he can get it under control. He suddenly remembers her name. Patricia. Patricia Pharaoh.
“There is a fatality, then?” he asks, quietly. “I advised the owner to dial 999 but she was most insistent it wasn’t anything to worry about so I said I would take a look…”
She shakes her head at him, sunglasses slipping down her face to reveal piercing blue eyes, and the darkness beneath. She doesn’t sleep much, thinks McAvoy, automatically. And there’s pain there…
“Well, you’ll be delighted to hear that I’ve also had a perfectly good day ruined. I only wanted a pissing cup of coffee to wash down the ibuprofen. Then the young lad’s asking when the big police officer is going to get here and whether he can go back to look at the body, and despite my absolute desire to scurry out and leave it to you sods on this bank of the river, I felt duty bound to ask the questions that a good police officer should ask. Such as ‘what fucking body?’”
“And you got a reply?”
She drops her cigarette and grinds it out. McAvoy notices the mud and leaves on the flanks of her biker boots. “Just what I needed after the weekend I’ve had. Followed the lad down to the most sorry excuse for a pond you’ve ever seen. Rummaging about in the undergrowth like a tramp looking for a place to build a second home, and there they are. Poor bastards.”
“You’ve called it in?”
She chews her lip, staring past him. He follows her gaze and realises she is looking at the people carrier, where he can just make out the shape of Roisin, rocking extravagantly to whatever CD she has put in the player. He looks back and sees the accusatory frown on the DCI’s face.
“Roper’s team, aren’t you?” She wrinkles her nostrils, sucks her teeth. “What a waste. Had a quick glance at your file when they gave me your card and said you were making your way over as if you were the bloody sheriff. You’ve done some good work. Big brain, from what I can tell. Helped with some very difficult cases. Friends in high places and enemies in even higher ones. What a fascinating chap you are. Shame you’ve wasted your one favour on hitching your wagon to that bent bastard.”
McAvoy looks confused. “I don’t understand…”
“Well, that’s one good thing, at least,” muses Pharaoh, lighting another cigarette and pouring the last dregs of her coffee onto her boot then rubbing the toe against the rear of her dark jeans. “Most of the blokes who’ve worked for me would rather die than say they don’t understand. Not many of the ladies willing to admit to it either.”
“Should I go?” asks McAvoy, looking pained. “You’ve obviously got this under control…”
She laughs, big and loud and seemingly quite happy with the question. “Fucking hell,” she says, puffing out her cheeks. “I bet Roper bloody loves you! No wonder he’s got you out on loan to any department with a shitty job that needs doing. You’re not his type at all.”
“What type is that?” asks McAvoy, before he can stop himself. He wants
to know about the two dead men.
“Bastards, normally,” muses Pharaoh. “Ambitious, dick-led, right-wing, misogynistic uber-cunts who’ll do whatever he tells them to do and then lie about it afterwards if it helps them slip up the greasy pole behind him and pay a few quid off the mortgage on their Lanzarote timeshare.”
McAvoy recoils, raising his hands. He glances back to the people carrier and the safety offered within. He hopes Roisin will come and ask him if everything’s OK, then slip her hand into his and take him home. He bites down, back teeth mashing together, wishing he were a better man or, at the very least, a less feeble excuse for one. He stands still: a schoolboy waiting to be told how many times he must write out ‘I must not be useless’ on the blackboard.
“That the missus, is it?” asks Pharaoh, chattily. “You know there’s an asterisk next to your name in your human resources file, don’t you? And if you happen to enter your good lady’s name into the PNC database or HOLMES, it comes up as flagged. You need to be an assistant chief constable to view the record of your Roisin. You really are a fascinating chap.”
McAvoy rubs a hand over his face. Something sticky catches his thumb. He realises he’s wearing pink lip gloss. He turns crimson. Dies a little inside.
“In answer to your question, McAvoy, I have indeed called it in. But I’ve done the sensible thing of leaving a message on a phone that I know won’t be checked for at least a couple of hours. That means I am absolved of responsibility and don’t have to get sucked into the investigation. So, if you want to be Roper’s good doggy for the day and get into his good graces, you can tell him you’ve got a case that looks like it could have headlines aplenty, and you know how he likes his headlines. He might even give you a few slices of packet ham while he tickles your tummy and rubs behind your ear. He’s like that, is Doug. As for me, I get to go home, and deal with my own shit, safe in the knowledge that I did my duty.”
McAvoy watches her mouth move as she talks. Stares into her blue eyes, peeping over the top of her frames. He sees a flicker of something: an intelligence, certainly, but something more. Something that tells him that she’s playing a role. There are tears inside her: tears unspilled. His compassion overwhelms him. He lowers his voice, cocks his head, gives her his full focus, as he remembers why she took the leave of absence. Her husband. An aneurysm. Left in a near-permanent vegetative state but clinging onto life. And her. Four daughters and a stepson to raise. He understands why she wants no part in an investigation over this side of the river. She has too much to do.
