by S Williams
She’d sat in the room as he worked, not making eye contact, concentrating on his work.
After he’d left she’d got in a second locksmith.
She knew about locksmiths. They always kept spare keys. In case the client lost a set. Two separate locksmiths was safer.
Best to double up. Double down.
And then the bolts for luck.
She had a hook by the side of the door where she kept the keys. Like a jailer’s hook. She needed them by the door in case she had to get out quickly. Because you never knew. Never knew when you needed to run.
Daisy opened her eyes. They were startling to look at. The irises two different colours: blue and brown. Complete heterochromia. Her sense of wrongness increased. She stayed still, laying on the mattress in her boxers and T-shirt. She kept the heat of the flat high, so she didn’t need a duvet. She listened. She could hear the old couple in the flat above her, moving with their old-people movements. Slow and somehow heavy with the weight of their lives. Outside was the white noise of the city; traffic and builders and the aural detritus of living in a human anthill. Her windows weren’t double glazed. It was one of the reasons she’d chosen the flat. It was converted badly from its original industrial use with too little money spent on it then and since. These were old-school windows. Windows you could open and climb out of in an emergency. Escape.
They had bolts on too.
She could hear a mobile from another part of the building, and the sound of a toddler starting World War Whatever with its mother.
Daisy winced subconsciously.
She counted down from ten, holding her breath and fixing her gaze to the ceiling. When she got to zero she breathed out through her nose, like the therapists had taught her, rolled off the mattress, and stood. Her floor was made up of the original wide strips of rough pine, installed when the building was a mill. The old wood was saturated with oil and grease. It had been sanded and coated but was still an industrial map of heavy machinery and child labour. No amount of sanding was going to eradicate that. Daisy walked to the wall and pressed her hand against it. Steadying herself. Trying to find the cause of her disorientation.
She knew what it was already, somewhere in the car crash of her subconscious. All the therapies had taught her that. She just needed to let her mind left-turn itself. Let her see the pattern.
Daisy moved away from the wall and walked out of the bedroom and into the hall. She walked down the narrow corridor and stood in front of the flat entrance. When she’d moved in she’d had the flimsy wooden door replaced. What was the point of having good locks on a shit door? One good kick and the hinges would have popped right off. She’d had it removed and replaced with solid oak. She’d wanted a metal one, like in the Manchester war zone estates, but the building manager wouldn’t let her.
She checked the locks. Checked the bolts. Checked her keys hanging on the hook by the side. Keys for her flat and for the lobby downstairs. Keys for Jay’s flat, in case of emergencies.
Daisy placed her hand on the door. Turned the handle to double make sure.
Locked. Safe.
Satisfied, Daisy slowly swivelled around. In front of her she could see the doorway to her bedroom on the left, and the doorway to her bathroom on the right. At the end of the hall was an opening into the kitchen/living space.
Three rooms and a hallway. Bigger than she needed for what she owned, but any smaller and the shakes got too much. The ringing of the phone was drilling into her. Ghost-fish were beginning to swim across her vision; a sure indication of the pain to come. She walked down the hallway, her bare feet whispering on the pine.
Then she stopped. The phone ceased its ring at almost the same time. The sense of wrongness had increased. Ramped up.
Daisy moved to the edge of the hall, stepping sideways, and placed her back against the wall. From this angle, she could see into her bedroom. The room she thought of as her sleep-room. Where she closed the world down.
Her dead-room.
Empty.
On the wall was her whiteboard. A place for her to write her thoughts so they wouldn’t split open her head. Or to fill in the spaces if she had forgotten something. It was blank; there was no message to herself from the previous night.
The phone started ringing again, causing the ghost-fish to swim faster, slicing pain across her vision. She carefully moved her head, scanning the hermetic world of her flat, listening to it ticking around her. After a beat, when she was sure there was nobody in there with her, she continued walking down the hall.
Through the doorless doorway at the end, she could see her kitchen. The cooker she never used and the open-fronted cupboards with the plates and cups that she never touched. She had no idea how many people had eaten off of them before she moved in, and wasn’t going to add to it, buying disposable plastic cups instead.
She walked through the doorway.
As well as the cooker there was a small tabletop fridge, a microwave and a mini dishwasher. The kitchen was annexed off by an L-shaped worktop-cum-breakfast bar, and the rest of the room was living space.
There was a low table and a record player on the floor near the corner, the records neatly resting against the wall, and a long oblong mirror with a sheet over it.
No TV. No computer.
The phone was on the table. Daisy stared at it. She could see the screen flashing in time with the ring. Could feel the noise as pulses in her brain. The dorsal insular. The cluster of matter in her head where darkness coalesced.
Daisy felt a sense of relief. Not because of the pain, but because she had found the cause of her tension. The thing that had made her wake up wrong.
It was the phone.
She stared at the device, its screen lighting up with each burst.
It stopped ringing.
In the silence, Daisy walked to the table and sat down cross-legged in front of it. She stared at the mobile, waiting. She blinked when the phone rang again. Flashing.
She read the words pulsing on its screen.
Daisy. Daisy. Daisy.
She looked toward the locked front door.
Double-locked.
Triple-locked.
Bolted.
The phone stopped ringing.
Daisy stared at it. The thing that was off-kilter. That meant everything was quite fundamentally wrong.
Daisy looked at the phone and wondered how it had got there.
Not just on the table, but in the flat.
Because Daisy did not own a phone. Not a landline and not a mobile.
Daisy had never seen the phone before.
Her face spasmed slightly when it rang again, flashing her name.
6
3rd November
We are now approaching Leeds Central Station, where this train will terminate. Please make sure you have all your belongings with you, and on behalf of the on-train staff, I hope you have enjoyed your trip with Northern Rail, and have a pleasant continuing journey. All alight at Leeds Central, as this train will terminate here.
‘I think you mean the journey will terminate, not the train,’ muttered Joseph absently, staring out at the driving rain that lashed at the platform as it swung into view. There was a general flurry of activity as the commuters grabbed the building blocks of their working day – coats, laptops, consciousness – and began to make their way to the exit. Joseph remained seated, waiting until the carriage was almost empty. He had caught an early train to give himself time to become centred before the commencement of his talk. He did not like to rush into a lecture, even one arranged at such short notice.
When the walkway was clear, and the doorway deserted of frantic commuters, Joseph stood. Retrieving his briefcase from the overhead storage shelf, he made his way up the aisle and off the train. Despite the early hour, just past six, the station was busy. Office workers getting an early jump on the day. Office cleaners, tired and washed out, heading to their next job. Construction workers wearing clothing with more pockets than could po
ssibly ever be needed, talking on their phones whilst slurping down coffee from corrugated cardboard cups. And here and there, Joseph noticed, street panhandlers: homeless men and women begging money for tea. For food. For drugs or alcohol.
Joseph watched as the river of people went around them as if they weren’t even there, merely rocks in the commuter stream. Joseph inserted his ticket into the slot by the automatic gates and quickly left the station. Outside, the day was still dark, street lamps still glowing, lighting up individual drops of rain as they ripped at the buildings, driven by a bitter Leeds wind.
‘Right,’ he said.
Pulling his overcoat tight around himself, Joseph hurried along the road towards the Corn Exchange, and the indoor market. As he slipped inside he was immediately assaulted by the cacophony of commerce; wooden shutters being removed from stall-fronts, metal security blinds being wound up, produce of all kinds being arranged and displayed, ready for the day. Market store-holders greeting each other and exchanging banter as they put the finishing touches to their businesses before the public began to flow through en masse. Joseph looked around, searching for a café bench to sit at and relax before heading off to the university. Deciding to follow his nose, he ambled along the stone aisles, then sat down on the stool at the Moroccan coffee stand. Joseph took off his coat, which was steaming slightly as the rain began to evaporate in the heat of the market, and placed it over the back of his chair. He glanced around, and then raised a finger at the man behind the counter. The man – Joseph guessed the owner – wore a traditional djellaba with a fez. He smiled in response to Joseph, showing an impressive array of gold teeth.
‘What can I get you, mate?’ He indicated the handwritten board suspended from the roof of the stall. Joseph smiled at him. The man’s outfit might have been traditional Moroccan, but his accent was pure Leeds.
Joseph looked around the stall. ‘What do I smell?’
‘Khoudenjal, finest in the city, my friend.’
‘I’m sure. Then one khoudenjal, please.’
‘With the trimmings?’ The stall owner pointed to a selection of cakes and exotic pastries.
‘You bet.’ Joseph pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket, extracted a ten-pound note, and placed it onto the little silver plate on the counter, covering it with the holding stone, a beautifully painted smooth round piece of sandstone.
While his tea was being prepared, Joseph unsnapped the clasp on his briefcase and pulled out the notes on his lecture. Although he knew the material well, the short notice, and the bespoking he had done to some of the examples he was going to give, warranted a read-through.
Joseph spent the next few minutes power-briefing himself. When he had finished and looked up, the spicy tea and delicate sweets had been laid out in front of him. The tenner had disappeared. Joseph returned his notes to the briefcase and tried one of the pastries. It was delicious. He sipped the equally delicious tea and watched the world of semi-legitimate commerce happen around him. Across from the food stall was an electronics kiosk, declaring that it could unlock fones while u w8! Joseph didn’t doubt it. It might as well say u steal m, we’ll wyp m! Joseph noted the name of the stall and continued with his exotic breakfast.
After ten minutes the alarm went off on his watch, indicating that he had thirty minutes before his lecture. He stood and pulled on his coat. The stall owner ambled over, reaching into the change bag around his waist.
Joseph waved a hand. ‘No need for change. That was the best khoudenjal I’ve ever had!’
The man smiled widely, treating Joseph to the glare of dazzling dental bling.
‘For real, bruv! You have a wicked day, yeah?’
Joseph assured him he would, then picked up his briefcase and left the market.
Five minutes later he arrived at the nondescript building that contained the lecture hall.
Joseph took a deep breath, then stepped inside out of the rain.
7
August
Jay knocked on the door, waited until she heard the shout, then entered.
The woman sitting behind the desk looked to be in her late fifties, with dirty-blonde crew cut hair flecked with grey and a smile that was ripped straight off Kaa, the snake from Jungle Book. Jay had never seen her before.
‘Ah, Ms Starling! So glad you could make it. Please, take a seat… I won’t keep you a moment.’
The woman’s smile turned off and she started jotting down notes in a folder in front of her.
‘Ma’am,’ said Jay, noting the badge on the woman’s jacket, removing her hat and sitting down stiffly. She knew she was about to be fired, but she was fucked if she was going to give this woman the satisfaction of seeing her hurt. The fact that she hadn’t called her ‘officer’ or ‘constable’ might mean that she’d been fired already, and this was simply the news coming in late. Which is probably why they’d sent this outsider, rather than her own senior commander. Inside, Jay fumed. One little hit of a superior officer and it had come to this. And after all the shit she’d taken!
All right, it might have been more than a little hit, but he had asked for it. Calling her what he had. It was just a shame no one had been around to witness it. Just the silent CCTV, with the man facing away from it so you couldn’t even see his lips move.
The woman in front of her continued making notes in a folder. The noise of her pen scratching across the paper set Jay’s nerves on edge, causing her to clench her fists under the desk. Finally, the woman looked up.
‘You broke his jaw in two places, Ms Starling. Very impressive.’
‘Not really, ma’am, I was trying to remove his head.’
Jay saw no point in contrition. They’d fired her anyway. Plus it wasn’t her style. Never had been. Not at school, when she ever went. Not at home. Not even in the academy.
She blamed her mother.
‘Why?’
‘Why what, ma’am?’
‘Why were you trying to remove his head?’ The inspector glanced down. ‘It seems like a perfectly nice head to me.’
Jay blinked. That was not what she had expected. ‘He said some offensive things to me, ma’am.’
‘And this was your way of reporting it? By smashing him in the face with your elbow?’
Jay stared straight ahead. ‘If I’d used my fist I’d have probably broken my fingers, ma’am.’
The inspector burst out laughing.
Jay’s eyes slid to her, confused.
‘Oh, I’d have loved to have been there.’ The inspector chuckled. ‘From all accounts, the officer you hit was a raging homophobe and racist. You probably did the force a favour.’
Jay gaped at her.
‘I’ll still have to suspend you, of course. There were no witnesses. He said you had it in for him because he turned down a sexual advance you made. He said you were trying for…’ she glanced down at her folder, ‘… a promotion fuck.’
‘What? The wanker!’
‘His word against yours. And he’s the only one with a broken jaw.’
‘That’s so unfair!’ Jay seethed. ‘The fucking dinosaur called me a–’ she bit down before she could get into any more trouble. The inspector tutted sympathetically.
‘You do seem to have had some trouble fitting in, Jay.’ Her eyes flicked down at her notes again. ‘Despite good scores in your training you have never really seemed to have settled, have you?’ The inspector glanced at her hair. ‘Never really been a team player.’
Jay felt the old anger rising again. ‘I fit in fine.’
The inspector’s smile broadened again. ‘We both know that’s not true, Jay! And I’m not talking about your cultural background or sexuality. None of those things should have a negative dimension in today’s force. I’m talking about your heritage. The baggage you’ve brought with you.’
Jay stared at her.
‘Ma’am?’ she said eventually, an eyebrow raised. She felt that there was a bomb ticking in her head, and wondered if there was a custodial sentence for hi
tting an inspector.
‘I understand your mother actually did some time in prison?’
Jay felt her fists tighten again. ‘I’m not sure of the relevance–’
‘And as a consequence you spent a portion of your youth being somewhat…’ the inspector paused as if trying to think of the most delicate way of putting it, ‘…wild?’
‘I was never arrested.’
‘No, but you were forced to attend some time in therapy sessions I understand. Anger management and such.’
‘How do you…? That’s confidential.’ Jay was fairly certain that wasn’t in her employment file. The lawyer who’d got her the deal at the time said there would be no record on the PNC.
‘I promise I won’t tell.’ The inspector smiled kindly. When Jay didn’t say anything the woman nodded sharply. ‘That all seems to be in order.’
The inspector closed the file. ‘Jay Starling, I am formally suspending you of all duties pending an inquiry into your actions pertaining to the assault carried out on Detective Charmers.’
Jay felt a cold weight. She knew it had been coming, but to hear it out loud felt like a hammer hitting the final nail into her coffin. That was the end of her police career. She placed her hat back on and stared straight ahead, determined not to cry.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good. And now that’s out of the way I’d like to offer you a job.’
Jay stared at her. The woman nodded back expectantly. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your past makes you almost uniquely qualified.’
Jay swallowed, causing her ears to pop. She was sure she must have misheard. ‘I don’t understand. I thought you said I was suspended.’
‘From normal police duties, yes. This is different. In a way what you did to Charmers is perfect. It’s the ideal camouflage. I’m offering you the opportunity to go undercover, Starling. To work with us at F-branch. All very secret, I’m afraid. You won’t be able to tell anyone. Not your co-workers. Not your mother. No one. As far as anybody will know you will be fully suspended, but you will be working for me. You’ll also have to sign a non-disclosure contract.’