The Cutting Room

by Ashley Dyer

  “Can we see the applications for the last two years?”

  He looked uncertain again. “It’s possible, but are you sure you’d want to? There must be over two thousand in our archives.”

  “Are they listed on a database?”

  He nodded. “Excel, I think.”

  “Who is eligible?” Carver asked.

  “Anyone who hasn’t had a major exhibition of their work can apply. Oh, and there’s a residential requirement—they must have been born in the northwest of England, or be living here now.”

  That didn’t really help.

  “Any age requirement?” Ruth put in.

  “Twenty-five to forty.”

  “What are you looking for in art projects you sponsor?”

  “Originality, innovation. Works that excite, challenge, and provoke.” Barrow chewed the inside of his lip as he thought through the rest. “Art that invites interaction, or even better, participation.”

  “So you would reject art that is . . . what?”

  “Dull, lacking originality, fails to excite or challenge.”

  “And the judges send written comments?” Ruth said. Carver began to ask why, but she preempted his question: “So we can word search them.”

  “All the judges have to send a written summary for the long list and the short list,” Barrow said. “I could e-mail those over—I have copies.”

  “Okay, we’d need to see all submissions, rejections, and if possible, reasons for rejection, too.”

  “I could get them, but I’d have to talk to Marcus’s PA,” Barrow said. “I only saw the eligible subs.”

  “Probably best if I sort that with the bank myself,” Ruth said.

  “And if you could send what you have over to me in the meantime . . .” Carver handed Barrow a business card. “My direct e-mail is on the back.”

  He saw them out in a much more somber mood than when they had arrived, but as Carver was stepping out onto the street, Barrow tapped him on the shoulder.

  “I could probably get you a deal on that painting,” he said. “The artist is Gordon Jakes—he’d be thrilled to see his work go to a fellow synesthete. Think about it overnight—the title of the happy painting is—”

  “Joy,” Carver said.

  “Now, that is just spooky,” Barrow said.

  59

  Ruth arrived home at eight thirty.

  Even before she stepped inside, something felt off. Down the hall, she saw that the kitchen door was open a crack; she always shut it before she left the house. She froze, the key still in the lock. A bass rumble, like heavy artillery—she experienced it deep in her chest. With it, an icy trickle of fear in her gut. Then the unmistakable sound of a fist striking flesh, a choked cry, the crack of bones. Under it, a bass beat; counterpoint to the drone of cellos and bassoons—insistent unsettling, bringing to mind war and rumor, and present danger.

  Someone was playing one of her Xbox games.

  Ruth was still using a fleet car, but the Ferryman could have had his ghost army of hoodies trail her home before she was even aware of them.

  Well, screw ’em.

  She left the front door open, treading softly to the sitting room door, paused to flick open her Casco baton, and, heart thudding, turned the handle and swung the door wide. A quick glance left, then she stepped inside. The curtains were drawn, the only light from the flickering scenes on the TV screen in the back half of the room. Two long legs sprawled out across her rug. A tall male. The top half of his body was hidden behind the recess in the wall. The room reeked of beer.

  Baton over her right shoulder, tight to her body, she stepped forward.

  Adam.

  She exhaled in a rush.

  He was so focused on the screen, he didn’t see her, and she was tempted to whack him once in the knee, for the scare he’d given her. Instead, she moved in front of him, blocking his view of the TV.

  He almost dropped the control. “Holy shit! Jesus, Ruth—don’t creep up on a guy like that.”

  “I don’t think I was in any danger,” she said. “It’s not like you could shoot me with your imaginary gun.”

  He tried to peer around her, but she plucked the console from his hands and turned off the TV. “Game over, sunshine,” she said. “Now, what are you doing here?”

  “Like you said, it’s my home, too.”

  “It is, but it’s not nice to steal other people’s toys, now is it?” She set the control down and surveyed the litter around his feet: six empty beer bottles and two takeaway cartons. “And I’m guessing you didn’t bring that beer with you.”

  “They were just sitting there in the fridge, so . . .” He flashed her a crooked smile.

  She telescoped the Casco baton and slid it back into the holder on her belt. “How did you get in, Adam?”

  “MadAdaM.” He was slurring a little and seemed to be having trouble keeping the soppy smile on his face.

  She waited, still standing over him, and after a moment or two, he dug in his jeans pocket and came out with a Yale front door key on a ring hooked around his middle finger.

  “You can always rely on ol’ Peggy to have a spare,” he said.

  “You should have rung.”

  “When did you get all middle class?”

  Ruth went to close the front door and carried on through to the kitchen to brew coffee.

  A minute or two later, the clink of glass on glass warned her that Adam was coming down the hall.

  “See,” he said, stacking the empties on the work surface. “Tidying up after myself.”

  She handed him a mug and he added milk. “Got any sugar?” he asked, opening and closing doors at random. Ruth opened one of the lower cupboards and he dived in, coming out with a jar and casting about for a spoon. She handed him one from the cutlery drawer and he heaped in three spoonfuls.

  “You’ve done the place up nice,” he said.

  She nodded, watching him, wondering what the hell he wanted from her.

  “D’you still do the garden?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I garden.”

  “Granddad always loved that garden.” He nodded: two big, loose jerks of his head.

  “He did.” She softened toward him a little, remembering how Adam had idolized his grandfather: Grandma called them Heckle and Jeckle; to Mum, they were Grandpa and Eddie Munster. Granddad had more or less lived with them after Dad moved out—he was a widower by then. He’d died two months before Mum was murdered, and Ruth wondered how different things might have been if Adam had had his “partner in crime” to turn to.

  Adam dutifully replaced the lid on the sugar and crouched to replace it in the cupboard.

  “Oh-ho,” he murmured. “Now, what’s this?” and she knew he’d found the bottle of vodka that had been sitting in there unopened since last Easter.

  He reached in to the back of the cupboard, scattering packets and jars as he clumsily withdrew his prize.

  “Come on,” Ruth said, holding out her hand. “You’ve already had more than enough.”

  He held the vodka close to his chest and struggled to his feet. “Well, you know the old saying—you don’t know you’ve had enough till you’ve had too much.”

  “Adam, I’m not joking,” she said. “You need to eat something or drink some coffee—sober up.”

  He leaned back against the counter and cracked the seal.

  “You sanctimonious hypocrite,” he said. “Criticizing my morals when you do deals with criminals.”

  He was talking about Dave Ryan.

  “I told you, Ryan is full of it.”

  “Yeah?” He took a swallow of vodka, grimacing against the burn. “I looked up ‘his eldest’—yeah, you’re not the only one around here with detective skills. Damien Ryan, a chip off the old block, slated to inherit a criminal empire. Naomi Ryan, his wife. Both murdered months after they were married, her pregnant, too. Know what the weapon was?”

  “A hammer.” She couldn’t look him in the eye.

  �
�And Ryan thinks you saw justice done. What does that mean?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “’Cos they never found the hammer attacker.”

  “Which is why I said Ryan is full of it.”

  “What’s the murder of Dave Ryan’s son got to do with Mum?”

  She almost told him. She was so heartsick of carrying this burden around, she almost blurted out the whole terrible story, but Adam was never any good at waiting—he always thought he knew all the answers already.

  “What did you do—talk Dad into topping himself?”

  The idea was so outrageous—so wide of the mark—that she almost laughed. “Where the hell did that come from? Didn’t you check the dates when you were doing your brilliant detective work?”

  She could see from his confusion that he hadn’t.

  “No, of course not. You just got tanked up, googled a few news items, and came up with a half-arsed conspiracy theory. Well done, little brother.” She was losing her cool. She never lost her cool. Except around Adam, her inner voice murmured.

  She took a breath. “To set the record straight, Ryan’s son and daughter-in-law were murdered years after Mum died.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “Go ahead, google it.”

  “Fuck off,” he said. “I know you did something. And by the way—why would you keep a framed photograph of Dad with the two of us?”

  It was a tactic—she knew it of old—finding himself in the wrong, he’d go on the attack. Even so, he was right. “I know it might seem weird—”

  “Pride of place on the bookcase in your homely little reading corner—you’re damn right it seems weird. D’you like being reminded he bashed Mum’s head in?”

  “Adam, stop,” she said.

  “I can’t even stand to look at that evil, murdering bastard.”

  “I know,” she said. “I felt the same, for a long time.”

  “And now, what—you’re okay with it?” He took another mouthful of vodka. “Why are you still living in this place, with its tainted memories? Just thinking about him, standing where you’re standing now, arguing with Mum—makes me want to throw up.”

  “You were too young to fully understand what was happening at that time.”

  “I was fourteen years old. I knew exactly what was happening. He screwed his secretary, screwed up his marriage, screwed up his business, and as always he expected Mum to bail him out.”

  “I know. He did all that. But that night—I think if maybe we’d just listened—”

  Adam flung his arms wide, laughing wildly. “He turned up on our doorstep, covered in blood. Said his girlfriend—his girlfriend—was dead, and Mum had to help him. Fucking psychopath.”

  “He also said he didn’t do it,” Ruth reminded him.

  “Yeah, well, he said a lot of things, over the years.” His skin was grayish and sheened in a light sweat; he looked close to collapse, and Ruth realized he must have been half drunk even before he’d started in on the beers. “Annnnnyway—you’re the one who tried to call the cops.”

  “Like I said, if we’d listened . . .”

  It was pointless antagonizing him like this; she couldn’t back it up with anything concrete, anything that might make sense. Just shut up and let him go and sleep it off.

  “Look, Adam, why don’t I—”

  “MadAdaM.”

  “Oh, come on . . .”

  “What—you can change your name, but I can’t?” He rubbed his nose furiously. “Oh, now that’s a good point.” He banged the base of the bottle twice, hard, on the work surface. “If you thought Dad was so misunderstood, why did you change your name? Hm? I’ll tell you why. Because you didn’t want to be allied to that murdering scum. ‘He said he didn’t do it.’ You didn’t believe him any more than I did.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t believe him. Not then, but things change.”

  “Nothing has changed, Ruth.” He was yelling now. “Mum is still dead. You and me—we’re still fucked up.” He began to cry, but Ruth knew better than to go to him. He was raging at her because he was angry with himself, at what he would regard as weakness. Since Mum died, Ruth had seen him cry only once: that was on the day of Mum’s funeral; she’d tried to comfort him then, and it hadn’t ended well.

  “I can’t believe you’re defending him,” he said, wiping tears from his face with his shirtsleeve. “He doesn’t deserve to be buried in the same earth as Mum, let alone in the same cemetery.”

  Mum and Dad were buried within three days of each other at opposite ends of Springwood Cemetery, Mum in her family grave, Dad in a new plot. Ruth and Adam did not attend their father’s burial, and since there was no trial, they’d never had the opportunity to achieve what their therapists glibly called “closure.”

  “It comforted Grandma and Granddad Black,” she said.

  “Oh, well, so long as they’re okay.” He was swinging the vodka bottle dangerously wide in the small kitchen. “If I had my way, I’d dig the bastard up and chuck what’s left of him in the landfill. He murdered our mother, tore our family apart, and didn’t even have the balls to face up to the consequences.”

  He glared at the door into the hallway as though he expected their father to come through it at any second. Finally, he slammed the bottle down onto the kitchen table, ripped the door open, and stormed into the living room. Ruth followed him.

  He seized the photo frame and struggled with the hardboard backing, but he was too drunk to make his fingers do the task. So he dropped it onto the boards and ground it under his heel. Then he extracted the photo and, shaking shards of glass onto the floor, he tore it into pieces.

  Ruth did nothing to stop him. For four years after Mum died, she had hated and despised their father with the same intensity. She let Adam make his defiant stand, his fists bunched, and waited for the anger to leave him. He was shaking, still, but at least the crying had stopped.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  He looked at his hands as though they didn’t belong to him. “Fuck,” he said dully, “I gotta work tomorrow.”

  He allowed her to lead him through to the kitchen and sit him at the table. He made a feeble play for the vodka, but she swiped it out of reach and poured what was left down the sink, then took down a first aid kit from one of the wall cupboards.

  He sat still while she cleaned the cuts to his fingers and smeared them with Savlon, before wrapping them in gauze and bandaging them. He didn’t flinch once, and she wondered if he’d gone through the pain of all those tattoos to help numb his emotional suffering.

  Her eyes blurred with tears and she blinked them away.

  Adam seemed to come to, as if he’d been floating some distance away and had returned to himself. He ducked his head and looked into her face; she read surprise and concern in his expression.

  She looked back at him in question, and he said, “Crying over a stupid snapshot?”

  “No, Adam . . .” She felt unspeakably tired. “Not the snapshot.”

  “Us, then.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t feel the need to answer. “I didn’t come here to have a go at you,” he began. “But I just don’t get it . . . You deal with psychopaths and predators every day, but you can’t see it in your own father.”

  “He was selfish and feckless, a manipulator and a womanizer—a monumental screwup as a businessman,” she said. “I see that. But what happened to Mum . . .” She shook her head. “I just don’t think he would do such a terrible thing.”

  “You don’t think . . . ?” Adam seemed to catch himself, and when he went on, his tone was intense, but rational. “It took three of us to get him out of the house that night. He only left because he heard the police sirens.”

  “I know it looked bad—”

  He cut her off with a harsh laugh. “He confessed, Ruth—or did you forget?”

  “I know, but—”

  He interrupted again. “He murdered his girlfriend, he murdered
Mum, and then he did what he always did when things got hard for him. He took the easy way out.”

  Ruth stared at him, thinking, No, he didn’t Adam. He really didn’t. But she couldn’t explain—could never explain what her father did to protect them, and what Ruth herself did to try to restore their lives to some sort of balance.

  60

  Day 12

  Ruth was awakened by the wet smack of a hammer on human flesh. She sat up, staring, trembling, heart beating so hard it hurt.

  She pressed her left hand to her chest, used her right to lift her alarm clock. It was 4:15—pointless trying to get back to sleep. She jammed her feet into a pair of trainers, picked up her laptop, and headed down to the kitchen in jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, thinking to check on any reports that had come in during the night.

  The central heating had kicked in, and the house felt overwarm. Ruth went through to the TV room to turn the radiators down and check on her brother. Adam was passed out on the sofa, the family photograph he’d destroyed still in pieces on the floor.

  Ruth picked up the debris and tried not to think about how horribly their lives had gone wrong.

  Even in the dark, she could see a slick of unhealthy sweat on Adam’s skin. She touched his forehead, surprised to find it was cold. His arms, ornamented as half man, half machine, were pimpled with gooseflesh. Ruth fetched a glass of water and a bowl from the kitchen, then took a throw from the sofa in her reading room and gently placed it over him.

  At 4:50, she gave in to the temptation of a vape and opened the back door. Ruth had made a promise to her mother she would stay away from the cigs. She’d broken that promise, but she had never smoked in the house—a minor penance for having let Mum down.

  The light was on in Peggy’s kitchen next door, and Ruth guessed she would have heard her argument with Adam. Sometimes Ruth ducked old Peggy, but to do so now would be unkind, so she sucked on her vape and blew clouds into the night air, contemplating the spring daffodils that had broken through in the soggy borders, trying to remember which varieties she had placed where, and waiting for the sound of a bolt being drawn on her neighbor’s back door.