“Why couldn’t you run a wire upstairs into the lounge, so we could have light up there?” She planted her fists on her hips and looked sternly at him.
“I knew you’d say that.”
“You were just keeping it all for yourself, weren’t you?”
“No… I just thought that if we had light up there, you know, anything brighter than candlelight, it’d give our position away, and they would know where we were. Anyway, I thought you liked candlelight.”
“I’m not a fucking pit pony; I would like to see by proper light every now and then.” She looked around at the cellar and the way he “lived” down here, how things were neatly arranged on the walls, on the shelves, in the drawers. She got into his face. “But I could come down here.” She didn’t wait for a response. “We could all move down here and we could all share your light. How do you like that, Christian?”
“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t like it.”
“But we could have the light on all the time and–”
“It’s powered off a truck battery. And when the light dies away I can’t just charge it back up again, I have to go and steal another. They’re fucking heavy, and I risk being caught every time I do it–”
“But your paintings are worth the risk, right?”
“Why do you always complicate things? If we had light on all the time, we’d flatten the damned thing in a day or two.” He nodded over his shoulder, “So far, that’s lasted two weeks–”
“Well, there–”
“Because I don’t use it all the time!”
She folded her arms, heard him sigh and shuffle his feet. He could be such a selfish bastard at times.
“Do you want to see them or not?”
She looked up into his eyes, nodded.
The smile burst back onto his face. With the excitement of a kid discovering his first hard-on, Christian took hold of her hand and dragged her across the room, around a wooden easel in its centre that was draped with a sheet of plastic, and right up to the rickety door she had encountered only an hour ago all by herself.
He opened the door and brushed aside a spider’s web. “I’ve dreamt of showing you these for ages,” he said as he lifted three or four plastic-wrapped frames in each hand, and ushered her back out into the main room. Gently he placed them on a bench against the wall at the far side of the room where the light near the easel shone the brightest. “If you don’t like them, you will tell me, won’t you?”
She shrugged. “Have I ever lied to you?”
“Well, here goes.” Christian unwrapped the first one, and leaned it against the wall, standing back, positioning himself strategically so he could see her reaction. “This is a big event for me.”
For a long time, she gazed at it. She brought her hand up to her face. Her eyes seemed to grow bigger as they studied it. For what must have been half a minute she did not breathe, only stood there, half naked and cold, but unaware of everything as, like Mary Poppins falling into the chalk pavement picture, she fell into the painting before her. Silence hung in the air like a delicate web, and at last she exhaled and turned to him.
“Well?”
She looked back at the painting, enchanted, engrossed, lost within the world on the canvas. “It’s…” She studied it further, speechless for a moment longer. There was a lake, illuminated by moonlight, calm, placid, surrounded by a dark forest. Into the lake, protruding like a pointing finger was an old wooden jetty, dilapidated, neglected. Ghostly light danced beneath it, reflected from the shimmering water. And up on the shore stood a log cabin, a red light illuminating the shabby curtains, door open giving a glimpse into the kitchen with a steaming pot on the stove. Wisps of grey smoke twisted gracefully into the still air from a chimney hidden by the sunken spine of the shingle roof. Above it all, encircling the large moon, was the Milky Way.
It was more like a photograph than a painting; there were stars glowing with varying intensity, curls of gas clouds way out into the universe, all clearly visible and all beautifully captured in their translucent colours like a rainbow stirred by God’s hand. And in the centre of the painting, standing on the edge of the jetty, was a lone female whose silhouette was draped in a light lacy gown that billowed gently around her in a breeze you could almost feel. Her hands were curled around the smooth old wood and she gazed thoughtfully out into the lake.
For a moment, Alice could hear the woodland creatures, could feel the breeze on her damp cheeks and could smell the pine in the air, and could hear the gentle rippling of the water against the mossy legs of the jetty. Alice was enraptured.
She wondered who the woman was, and what she was thinking, where the lake was.
She was about to turn to him, tears – of what? joy, pride, enchantment? – glazed her eyes, but she stopped and looked back at the picture, looked deep into it as though someone had called her name. And she became rigid with wonder as she lost herself in the scene. Through the painting – no, that’s wrong, through the paint, the actual scrapes and brush strokes of the oils, perhaps even through the canvas itself, she could see it. It was a face, long hair, in ringlets blowing around it. It was a man’s face, and it smiled at her with sparkling eyes–
“Do you see him?”
Christian’s voice was like an explosion. It wrenched her back into the cellar with its smell of linseed and damp, back into the cold dusty room with grit underfoot and goose pimples on flesh. She gave a shriek and almost collapsed against the bench. Christian wrapped his hands around her. She peered at him; his eyes sparkled and she recognised the man in the picture. “You…”
He smiled still.
“You should grow your hair, Christian. It looks wonderful.”
“I’m glad you can see it.” He encircled her, and she felt safe, untouchable by the horrors of today. But she also felt troubled; unease trickled through her like a warning, a foreboding that she couldn’t tie down. He nuzzled her neck and she closed her eyes.
“You’ve heard of Realism? I call this style Beyond Realism.” His breath warmed her neck. “I invented my own style.”
He paints like… he paints like a magician. It shocks you, it startles you and it teases you, draws you nearer and then it mesmerises you.
“Are they all like this?”
“All made with paint.”
“Are they all as detailed as this? Do they all–”
“Talk to you?” He shrugged. “I suppose it depends who’s looking at them, how deeply they look, how hard they listen.”
“Yeah, but they’re all as detailed as this, aren’t they? They’re all,” she struggled for the word, “they’re all special?”
“Oh yes, they’re that alright.”
She closed her eyes and dreamed of selling them. What a difference a vein full of drugs could make to an otherwise dull day, and what a difference seeing the magic hidden inside the mind of your man, magic that could command financial independence. At that moment everything was as it should have been.
Alice ignored his earlier lies about trying and failing to sell the paintings, for these things would sell themselves without a shadow of a doubt; and she understood why he’d lied to her. He didn’t want to sell them, and she appreciated that; they were wonderful things but they didn’t deserve to live hidden in a dark cellar in a fucking squat! She let his stubble stroke her neck, and her hands moved over his body, down to where–
She stopped. Spencer was crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“Spencer.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I was getting in the mood then.”
“I wanted to look at that one.” She nodded to the easel.
“Not that one. Not yet.”
“Oh why?”
Spencer’s cry heightened.
“It’s not finished.”
“So?”
“No one sees my work before it’s finished; it’ll ruin it up here.” He prodded his head. “It’s like discussing some idea; it dilutes it, ruins the purity.”
>
“You know how to talk bollocks, dontcha?”
“Anyway.” He walked back around the corner to the battery, leaving the naked painting for her to stare at until it all went dark. “I need more paint, can’t paint without it.”
“Go out and buy some!” She screamed it at him, and then quickly put her hand over her mouth. Patience, she told herself. You’ll get to see it soon.
“I only steal paint, never buy it.”
“Why, you have the money, don’t you?”
“Got plenty. But I’m not wasting food money on paint, we have to eat and drink.”
“But–”
“Don’t worry, I’m going out this afternoon, there’s a big demo in town today and it’ll shield me.” He poked his head around the corner, and she tore herself away from the lake to look up at him. “Stolen paints give you an edge, they give you a buzz.”
It all went dark.
20
Saturday 20th June
– One –
Almost silent. It was as if the building was catching its breath between Friday and Monday. Mick sighed and rubbed the whiskers on his face. It was 11am and he’d been in the office less than an hour. Already he wanted to go home, and already he needed a drink. He looked around to make sure Rochester wasn’t peering at him through his office window, and headed through the double doors towards the gents’ and a generous top-up.
He’d come directly here after Eddie – Ros, actually – kicked him out this morning, and he guessed that if it was Eddie’s first day back at work next week, then who could blame the guy for wanting to be prepared. Mick though, didn’t care too much for work, or his personal appearance. If he stank, he stank. Let them breathe me in.
The gents’ was quiet as it usually was at this time of day, but he was dismayed to see his cubicle engaged. “Fuck,” he whispered, and stepped into another cubicle, sat and waited. His mind got working on Eddie and his situation. He was a good drinking buddy, and he planned on keeping it that way; they were so rare these days, and to have one that worked for the police had its benefits, not that Eddie realised he was occasionally being pumped for information.
That bitch Ros, was the fly in the Eddie ointment, always wanting to manipulate him.
He heard the sound of a zipper, and the toilet flushed. Mick stood and waited, door ajar. The lock snapped back and footsteps echoed on the tiled floor. Mick froze. The footsteps belonged to Rochester. Mick closed his eyes, standing there, half in and half out of the foreign cubicle, with smell oozing out of his armpits, with a day’s growth on his chin and no fucking tie.
The taps turned on and a voice spoke. “Still waiting for that story to land in your lap?”
Mick opened his eyes and sighed. “Hello, Mr Rochester. How are you today?”
“Rather better than you judging by your appearance.” Staring at him in the mirror, Rochester rinsed, dried and then turned around. “You look disgusting.”
“Sir.”
“You are turning into a tramp.” He stepped closer, sniffing the air. “You stink.”
“Sir.”
“You really have gone downhill. You weren’t at much of an altitude to begin with.”
“Attitude, sir?”
“Altitude. You didn’t start that high. Oh, never mind.”
“Sir.”
“You have turned disagreeably into a slimy toad, Mick. You have grease escaping from every pore that isn’t blocked with filth. Your hair is a disgrace; you’ve worn that shirt every day for the last week so far as my memory serves and,” he moved slightly closer, holding his breath, “is that gravy down the front of it?”
Shit, I knew I should have brought a tie in. “Absolutely not, sir!”
Rochester raised his eyebrows.
“It’s spaghetti.”
“What’s your excuse?” Rochester was not pleased.
“I was never very good at twiddling it around the fork and as I sucked it in, it did a helicopter and threw juice all–”
“My office. Ten minutes.”
“Shit,” he whispered as Rochester walked to the door.
“And Mick?”
“Sir?”
“Find some deodorant first, please.”
This was it. The day they forced him to resign.
He went into his own cubicle, slammed the door and punched the wall. He took off the cistern lid and pulled out a bottle of brandy wrapped in a plastic bag.
Mick sucked on a Polo as he approached William, the office junior. “William?” The lad turned, and his usually permanent smile slipped somewhat. “Have you got any deodorant you can lend me?”
“What?”
“Deodorant. Do you have some?”
“Er, yeah.”
“And I need to borrow your tie.”
“Sit down, Mick.”
“Sir.”
“And close the door.”
Mick got up and shut the door, retook his seat and stared into Rochester’s widely-spaced eyes. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“You are a disgrace to this newspaper, Mick.”
Mick laced his hands. There was a long silence, so long that it angered Mick into saying, “Look, if you’re going to sack me–”
“I should sack you, Mick.”
Should. The old man said should. That is a good word. It means won’t. But it also means there’s a condition attached.
Rochester leaned forward on his desk, cufflinks tinkling against it. “You’ve done some reasonably good reporting in your time here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I said reasonable, not good, certainly not outstanding,” he said. “You’ve covered the UK Criminal Justice system. I want you to take it a step further. I want you to go beneath the surface–”
“Undercover work?”
“I want you to get beneath the skin of the system, I want background stories for and against The Rules; I want you to capture the effects they’re having on everyday people.”
Well at least it wasn’t the sack. “Sir.”
“You will need a starting block. Something to ease you in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take a look at this.” Rochester handed Mick an unmarked brown envelope. “Read it when you get back to your desk. And then formulate an approach, gather information on the subjects and report back to me after you’ve interviewed them with a basic premise on your approach strategy.”
“Right, sir. Read the letter, interview someone and write a story.”
Rochester gave a slow shake of his head. “I’m treating this as your first real report. I’m treating you as I would a newcomer to the office, which means that all basic procedures must be adhered to, and company policy is uppermost. I want to see good story, good layout and plenty of feeling. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Mr Rochester, very.”
“This is your chance. Hand in mediocre work, and I may give you a reference; hand in work to your usual standard, and I’ll have security come and evict you. Is that clear?”
– Two –
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter to you as a last resort. Please don’t be offended by that, I meant that I have tried every other avenue available to me but have so far failed.
My son, Stephen, was sent to jail last year. He stabbed a burglar who was stealing his phone, keys and other property from his kitchen. I’m not defending his actions although I think any reasonable person could see it from my boy’s point of view.
What I’m protesting about is the parole board keep knocking him back for release because “he represents a danger to burglars”! A danger to burglars? That goes against common decency. Surely if you didn’t burgle good honest folk in the first place, you wouldn’t be in danger. He’s a decent fella in his fifties who don’t deserve to be locked away like a common drug-taking rapist or thief.
To add insult to injury, the burglar gets Legal Aid to sue my Stephen for wounding him. I nearly had a heart attack when I heard t
hat. And that’s something else that I think the public, if I can bring it to their attention through your wonderful newspaper, would be disgusted to learn. As they will be disgusted to hear that prisoners get a TV in their room and a choice of what DVD to watch every evening. Good living if you’re a criminal, eh.
I would very much like you to take up this story on Stephen’s behalf and see if you can’t get him out of prison and back to his family.
Thank you,
Lincoln Farrier
P.S. I’m going to see Sir George tomorrow, don’t know if he can help.
Mick read the letter through twice more and felt the prickle of injustice skitter up his spine. He tutted, reclined in his seat and folded his hands behind his head. He had a feeling for the story already; decided to play it from the sympathy angle, milk it for all it was worth. But then he had another feeling, a genuine interest in this old guy’s plight. Maybe he didn’t need to give it an angle at all; maybe it had all the angle it needed in its raw, untouched state.
“Can I have my tie back now?”
Mick looked up, dragged away from his thoughts, and saw Williams hovering over him. “This stain is coffee. It’ll wipe right off, no problem. Sorry.”
21
Sunday 21st June
– One –
Her feet tapped on the cinder path. She stopped, turned and listened. The high hedges on either side stopped the streetlight reaching her, and the moon was out of sight. She thought someone was following her, and almost said, ‘Come on, Sammy; hurry up!’, but she stopped short, reminding herself that she was alone, literally.
She had buried her kid weeks ago and had to begin learning all over again. Learning not to make his breakfast, not to get him ready for school. She shivered. Eddie should be here, but she’d said some awful things to him at the funeral and hadn’t seen him since.
Despite often taking twice the dose of Protromil – and walking around like life was on loan – she felt there was an inevitable end to it all, a sinking feeling pulling her in like a black hole pulls in the light. She wasn’t coping and instead of the guilt and the shame and the grief abating slowly but distinctly as time passed by, it grew more intense.
[Eddie Collins 01.0] The Third Rule Page 11