by Gary Bell
Ever since Sean had told me about girls working in the area, I had been thinking it might hold the answer we needed. Now I was almost sure of the complete opposite, and I’d got myself trapped in another dead end.
Awkwardly, I picked out the most responsive-looking of the trio, a young woman – a very young woman, I suspected – with a dark complexion and strong Slavic features, dressed in a chemise of shiny polyester that dreamed of being red Chinese silk. She managed a smile at least, full scarlet lips spreading through a fall of black corkscrew hair, and then led me off through the kitchen and a tiny passage-cum-utility area, into what turned out to be a bathroom at the very back of the ground floor.
It was even smaller in there, with another strip of cheap red cotton pinned across the ceiling light, darkening the grotty pink porcelain of the amenities, candles burning low on the windowsill alongside stacks of folded towels. The girl shut the door behind us and reached into the cubicle of a tight walk-in shower, releasing the spray.
‘Come,’ she said simply, eyes wide. ‘Shower.’
For all its underhanded baseness, there was something unnervingly beguiling about the gloom, the cocoa smell of massage oils soaked into the towels. I could feel myself slipping, falling, intoxicated by her presence and the leaden weight of exhaustion.
She casually dropped her slip down to the stilettos on her feet, and every muscle under my skin tensed at once, bolting me to the spot, all my weakness and loneliness forcing my eyes to the contours of her flesh, her breasts, and the lace of her underwear.
With a quick, practised flick of her feet and a gentle shove she removed my shoes, making me feel even more naked than she was.
She parted my coat and began to undo the buttons of my shirt, working downwards from my collar, and I was very nearly lost. My eyes closed, and warmth spread down through my body.
Then her fingers caught the deep scar on my chest, and the sheer chill of the contact shocked me to my senses.
I caught her wrists, cold and stiff as a corpse, and shook my head.
‘Can we just talk a minute?’
She frowned, snapping her hands away, and cocked her head. ‘You want we talk?’
‘Yes. You can put your clothes back on. Is that all right?’
She just shrugged, not especially embarrassed or relieved, and pulled her scant clothing up again, covering her thin body.
‘Some want to talk. Most don’t. You still pay.’
‘Course.’ I pulled my wallet out again and gathered the remaining notes I had in there, which amounted to no more than forty pounds. It felt dirty, thrusting the crumpled papers out towards her like that, and I was painfully ashamed. ‘Here. It’s just for you.’
‘For what?’
‘To talk, that’s all. I promise. Nothing else.’
She looked at the money, wet her lips, smudging the red there, and shook her head. ‘Matka will find it.’ She reached to kill the shower.
‘That’s all right,’ I said, ‘leave it running.’ Her seductive turn had all but vanished, and she was eyeing me suspiciously as I buttoned my shirt, clouds of water vapour thickening around us, dampening the candlelight. ‘Matka? You mean mother?’
‘Not really.’ She sat on the lid of the toilet seat, indicating the room around us. ‘Matka has the house. You understand?’
‘I think so … What about that man, the one who let me in?’
Her lips tightened. Nothing. I had to pull it back.
‘Where are you from? I mean, originally.’
‘Bulgaria.’
I couldn’t tell whether she was telling the truth. She had no reason to, I suppose.
Beneath the rumbling hiss and whirr of the electric shower, I could hear floorboards creaking overhead, heels clopping in the kitchen.
‘You worked here long? I mean, with Matka?’
She blinked, bewildered, and I could sense my time slipping away, as surely as the suffocating flame of the candle.
‘How about in Cotgrave, the village? Earlier this year, maybe? About six months ago?’
Another blink, almost bored.
I decided to go for broke, and reached into my coat pocket for the fold of case papers, still damp from the surface of the road. She watched warily, as I flicked through them, until I came to the grainy photographs of the victim at the service station.
‘How about her? Do you recognise this girl? Do you know her name, or how she might’ve got to England?’
‘Who are you?’ she asked, pulling her slip tighter. The humidity had almost swallowed the candlelight by now.
‘Nobody,’ I snapped. ‘Her name, that’s all I need!’
She shook her head, so I frantically raced for the photograph of Billy, the mugshot taken on the morning of the killing.
‘What about him? Has he ever come to you? Was he a regular at one point?’
I knew, from the way her eyes bulged at the mugshot, that it was a bad idea before she’d even opened her mouth.
‘Politsiya!’
‘No, wait!’
But she’d already made it to the door, flinging it open and hurtling out through the house.
‘Politsiya! Police! Police!’
‘Fuck!’ I tried to follow, stuffing the papers back into my pocket, but the giant who had let me into the house was already barrelling towards the bathroom, so I slammed the door shut and forced the flimsy bolt into the jamb.
Crunch. He must’ve thrown himself into the wood. I pushed my entire weight back, looking desperately at the window, which was barely half my width.
Another colossal slam, and a crack split the length of one panel. The only saving grace was that the passageway beyond the door was narrow, with little room for momentum, but I knew I had only seconds before the hinges gave way, and we reached his inevitable Here’s Johnny moment.
There have been several times in my life when I’ve had to take a beating, and known it in advance, if only by a few moments. The best thing to do is accept it, to take it on the chin, and cast aside such terrifying thoughts as one-punch kills.
In this situation, however, visions of that cold, empty railway seemed to come nearer with every shunt of muscle on wood.
I had no phone, no weapon, and no hope of escaping.
Until, out of nowhere, a memory came sharp and sudden as an electric shock.
A client I’d once defended on alleged arson.
A struggling beautician, she’d had a stroke of luck, one might say, when her failing salon inexplicably burned to the ground one night, and the subsequent insurance payout cleared her massive, mounting debts.
I had the charges dropped, after proving that the client used massage oils on a daily basis, the residue of which had gradually gathered in the fibres of her towels, enduring every wash cycle, until eventually igniting on one of the radiators in the middle of the night.
Oils. Towels.
I moved without considering the consequences, gathering fistfuls of oily, sweet-smelling towels from the windowsill and stuffing them into the sink, along with a half-roll of toilet paper for good measure. As the door burst open the lock pinged off and hit the tiles on the opposite side of the bathroom, and I introduced the dying candle to the pyre, taking cover on the underside of the porcelain sink.
It flashed like napalm, hurling heat into the face of the Goliath as he stormed the room, and the split second of confusion – him grabbing for the showerhead in a panic – was all I needed to barge through, bouncing off screaming, scantily clad women and leaving my shoes behind. The skinny young man with the burns around his eye appeared in the hall, leaping over the banister and into my path, but I steamrolled him with little effort.
I managed to sprint for several blocks of the estate, which was something of a personal best, before the pavement took its toll on my feet, the cold air cut at my lungs, and I was forced to slow to a sorry, breathless stagger.
Thankfully, nobody followed.
It was a half-hour walk back to the hotel, but I wanted to get
out of St Ann’s as fast as I could, and only hoped that a bare-footed six-foot-plus man with swelling bruises, might just look crazy enough to dissuade any more would-be assailants.
Halfway back, adrenaline subsiding, feet wet and numb from the freezing pavement, I caught sight of myself in the window of a parked van on Carlton Road and heard a manic, nervous laugh nearby.
It came from me, I realised; for now, it really was like being home.
Just then, as I was confident in the belief that things couldn’t get any worse – the likelihood of trouble for one night having surely been spent up by now – a car entered the dark road I walked, slowed to a crawl alongside King Edward Park, matching my pace, and halted my movement with a single, silent pulse of its blue light, which was swallowed by the fog.
19
It was an unmarked BMW 5 Series, a dark, matte sedan with thin LED strobes still glowing blue in the grille.
The window was already down when it pulled in to the kerb, but I couldn’t see the driver inside, buried in shadow as he was.
‘Morning,’ came a deep, resonant voice from the heart of the dark. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Fine,’ I replied as cheerily as I could manage; was it morning already? ‘Yourself?’
A hand must’ve reached upwards, because the interior light illuminated the inside of the car, the notebooks and flask on the otherwise empty passenger seat, and the driver opened his door with the engine still purring. At first, when he stepped out and I saw how tall he was, I hoped it might be Sean, but even my old friend was short compared to this solid six-and-a-half-footer. He moved into the light of a lamp post, revealing a barrel chest and combed blond hair, a moustache turning auburn and grey at the bristles, and regarded me in silence for a moment.
I turned my socks inwards, connecting toes as if to hide them, but he was already staring down with steely eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was much younger than me; he was certainly much fitter.
‘Mind if I ask what you’re up to?’
‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘Just on my way to bed. Had a couple of drinks and decided to stretch my legs. There’s no smoking at the hotel.’
‘What happened to your shoes?’
‘Left them in my room. Didn’t expect to walk this far.’
He turned his head pointedly between the black expanse of the park on the far side of the road, the empty, bolted faces of the garage and trade shops on the near, and shrugged. ‘Can’t see any hotels nearby. Want to tell me your name and what you’re doing in the area?’
I stuffed my glowing right fist into my coat pocket and felt the papers inside. ‘Are you asking officially?’
‘Should I be?’
There was something in his accent that was difficult to place; if it was Notts now, then it hadn’t been for long, and I couldn’t cool the irritating scratch at the back of my head that told me I recognised his face. Strangely, as if reading my thoughts, he was firing the same look back at me.
‘Well,’ I said, nodding at his zipped rugged barn coat and jeans, ‘since you’re not in uniform, I can only assume that you’re about to show me your warrant card, Officer …?’
He didn’t like that, and straightened up to his full height, which was undeniably massive, before flashing both teeth and his identification. ‘That’s Detective to you.’
It most certainly was, I realised when I looked at the card. Detective Chief Superintendent John DeWitt. If it had been any other night then I might not have believed my misfortune, but they do say that such things arrive in threes, after all.
What was it Sean had called him? The Sheriff of Nottingham? If I hadn’t sobered up already, I did so in another heartbeat.
‘So,’ he said, ‘shall we try that again? I want you to put your hands flat on the edge of the car.’
‘For what, exactly? If you’re planning on searching me, then I’d like to know on what reasonable grounds you intend to do so.’
He cocked his head and arched his brow, distantly amused. ‘You don’t ask the questions around here, I do, understand?’
Though I couldn’t be certain, I was fairly sure he’d just lifted one of Brian Dennehy’s lines straight out of First Blood, and suddenly I was Rambo, hands on the car, legs back, another drifter on the bonnet.
‘It’s a little late to be going for a wander,’ he said, wrapping both palms around my shoulders and sweeping the lengths of my sleeves. ‘You going to tell me your name?’
‘Sure,’ I growled, his hands slipping into the pockets of my coat, producing a fistful of damp papers. ‘Elliot Rook, and that’s Queen’s Counsel to you, Detective.’
There were many regrets I ended up with from that evening, but one had to be facing the opposite direction when he stiffened. I’d bet his expression was priceless.
‘So,’ I went on, shrugging him off and turning round, ‘you can tell me all about those reasonable grounds now, as well as what you expect to find on me, and then produce the record of the search that I’m entitled to.’
He blinked down at the papers in his hand, and then glanced up and down the length of the road; a taxi came belting along it, and then slammed on its brakes, dropping to the speed limit at the sight of us standing by the Beemer.
‘Rook …’ He scrunched his nose, lifting the moustache, and rummaged through a couple of the pages. ‘You’re defending in the railway murder?’
‘That’s right.’ I snatched the papers back, by now little better than tattered scraps, and returned them to my pocket. ‘Do you perform many random stop and searches, DCS DeWitt, or am I a special case? It’s just that usually I’m partial to at least a little foreplay before the groping starts.’
The last thing I expected him to do was smile, but smile he did, though his eyes remained cold as stones; like the wet smell of air freshener hanging in the toilet, I thought, it was pleasant, but only there to remind you that somebody had just taken a shit.
‘Can’t be too careful these days, can we? What brings you up to Nottingham, Counsel?’
‘Visiting old friends.’
‘Is that so? Well, how about I give you a lift back to your hotel, to show there’s no hard feelings?’
‘No thanks,’ I said, looking into the second strange back seat of the evening. ‘I came out here to stretch my legs, and that’s what I’ll do.’
He shrugged, imitating friendly, and tightened the collar of the barn coat against the lingering fog. ‘Where is it you’re staying?’
‘Travelodge on Maid Marian,’ I swiftly lied. ‘It’s only ten minutes from here. Enough time to have another smoke, I should imagine, and then it’s Goodnight, Vienna from me.’
I fished a cigarette out from my pocket, and before I had chance to find the lighter, he’d opened a brass Zippo in front of me, which cast a glow of orange over his entire face.
‘Not yet it isn’t,’ he said as I lit up, ‘but soon enough, I’m sure.’
The lighter closed with a snap, swallowing the flame, and for another moment we held our stares. Then he dipped his head and got back into the car, and despite it being quickly lost into the fog, I could feel him watching me closely in the rear-view mirror.
Fifteen minutes later I collapsed onto the hotel bed, grateful for the three locked doors that separated me from the city outside.
20
The exact same cleaner from the previous morning burst into my room once more, cleaning trolley at the ready, and woke me with another embarrassed fluster of frustrated apologies as she backed out into the hall again.
This time I couldn’t blame her. I was already half an hour late for checkout, and all but dead to the world.
I rolled over to check the time, and spots of pain blossomed all over my body. My fist was stiff, the knuckles split. I was filthy, tired, and ready to get back to London.
When I looked at my phone, however, still charging peacefully at the bedside, and saw the missed calls from Rupert, and an accompanying text message requesting – nay, demanding – that I come in
to chambers as soon as possible, my desire to go south was quickly snuffed.
The only other message had come from Zara, asking if I’d mind picking her up from the city centre, close by, and that was at least a single shred of good news. Going anywhere near St Ann’s was just about the last thing on my agenda.
I showered and scrubbed my teeth with my left hand, the right too stiff to close tightly around the brush, checked out of the hotel in my socks, and found, with no small relief, that my car hadn’t been torched by Nelson’s gang at any point in the night. Small blessings. The pale morning had washed the fog away, but the air remained wet in my lungs as I dug an old pair of golf shoes out of the boot.
It was half eleven when I found Zara sitting, as promised in her message, outside a coffee shop only a few blocks away. Face in her hands, half asleep, blocking out all the bustling city movement around her.
I pulled the car up onto the pavement, narrowly avoiding the pedestrians there, and blasted the horn, causing her, and everybody else, to jump.
‘You all right?’ I asked, once she’d flopped, deadweight, into the passenger seat.
She lowered the window and dropped her whole head out of it like a puppy gone limp.
‘Don’t feel well,’ she replied in a quiet undertone and, feeling somewhat tender myself, I almost retched on the smell of pure flammable spirits that surrounded her. She closed her eyes and breathed heavily through her nose, holding her temples between two fingers.
‘Millennial problems,’ I said, and then bounced the car down from the kerb with a crunch, spun the bonnet round to face the south, and let the engine have it.
Zara was soon asleep. So much for good company. Even when I pulled in to the service station for fuel, she didn’t stir.
A lady at the neighbouring pump flashed me a smile, but I couldn’t find one to return.
I took the unleaded from its sheath, joggled its nose into the tank, and used my left hand to squeeze; as the fuel poured and the dials whirred, I found my mind sliding back to The Girl’s final morning, the swaying pumps and the empty lot.