Road Kill

by Hanna Jameson

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t think Daisy knows anything?’

  ‘Daisy doesn’t think Seven has even left London. But my source is trustworthy, he wouldn’t send me out here on rumours.’

  ‘I know you and Seven were quite close. Noel said you were helping her out with all that shit that happened to her family. The murders.’

  ‘I thought we were close. But all the best liars are shape-shifters.’

  ‘Like you?’ I smiled. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken. We all are to some extent. I think the idea of a fixed self is debatable.’ He shrugged. ‘And I think that being yourself with someone – if yourself even exists – doesn’t apply to the people you think it does. I’ve felt less myself around people I’ve been fucking than some of my friends. Do you feel like you’re being yourself with Rachel?’

  ‘Yes. That’s, like, the whole point of being married, isn’t it. So you can just… be yourself.’

  But I wasn’t thinking about Rachel. I was thinking about Eli’s ranting in the car. ‘You are more yourself than you’ve ever been.’ His glee at reminding me of how much I wasn’t longing for home, clinging to home, in the way I’d thought I would.

  ‘I’d like to have met Eli,’ Mark said, as if he’d been following my train of thought. ‘He sounds rare.’

  *

  I’d come to Chicago for a stake-out, I realized. A stake-out Mark had already been conducting by himself for three days, either in his car or sitting in the window of the same coffee shop. The exact tip-off this Russian had given him was that a young Japanese girl had been working with a gang of armed robbers in the South Side, near Englewood.

  He hadn’t seen her yet.

  ‘A few girls who fit the description arrived through O’Hare International in the weeks after Seven disappeared,’ Mark assured me. ‘Nothing totally conclusive because she’ll be using a fake name and will have changed her appearance at least slightly. But there were enough to make it worth checking out thoroughly.’

  ‘So what makes you think this particular girl is Seven and not just some rando?’

  ‘Mostly the description. Half Japanese, hard-arse. He said she was new in town, spoke with an English accent.’ He glanced at me, smiling reassurance. ‘It’s not much, I know. But everyone seems very protective of her too, no one has been talking. Well, not without some persuasion anyway.’

  I didn’t feel much like smiling back.

  We got out of the car, parked on the bottom floor of a multistorey, some way from Englewood, but not far enough. I didn’t know Chicago that well, but when I’d briefly thought about moving here in my mid-teens for college, Englewood had been one of the places I’d been told to avoid.

  ‘I know you might think New York has the best pizza,’ Mark said, as we walked down a street of mostly restaurants. ‘But it’s like pizza for ants compared to this place.’

  I kinda zoned out, stopped and sent Eli a text asking whether he was back in New York or Philadelphia, and when he was heading to Staten Island.

  ‘Ron?’

  I didn’t notice that I’d halted.

  ‘Ronnie, are you all right?’

  It hit me. I no longer gave a shit. I didn’t care if we found Seven or not. Fuck this. Fuck mystery Russians. Fuck Noel back in London. Fuck Daisy and her self-satisfied questioning. Fuck Eamonn and fuck Dad and his palming-off of the worst of his creations onto me. Fuck everyone fucking up in such a repellent fucking human fashion. I wanted to go to Staten Island, find Trent and go home.

  We were on the outskirts of a park. Mark standing some way away, looking over his shoulder.

  ‘I’m not staking out this building with you,’ I said.

  His gaze fell to my phone. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I put the mobile in my pocket. ‘Nothing’s happened, I just… Let my brother help you or something. I think he’s coming here and I’ll tell him to meet you. I’m… I’m going to the airport.’

  I took a step back, about-turned and started walking.

  It used to appeal to me that Chicago’s streets were cleaner than most, but now it made me want to retreat. Not even vengeance was enough to keep me here, station me outside a building searching for someone who meant nothing to me. I didn’t even feel hate. I’d fucking transcended hate; I’d transcended all these emotions now.

  ‘Trent isn’t your problem, Ron.’

  ‘I don’t care, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘Go!’

  I stopped, rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of my feet as if I was going to run. But I was paralysed by indecision.

  ‘Where, to Staten Island?’

  ‘Yes, probably. I don’t know.’

  I flinched as Mark tried to take my shoulder, and realized I’d put both hands to my head.

  Why was I here? Why was I here? Why was I here?

  ‘We skinned Thomas Love alive in New York, hung him upside down and pulled it off in fucking reams, it came off in pieces, and then Cathal Sheedy gave me this… spoon after a guy chewed up a cyanide pill in his kitchen. And before we left I told their faceless boss to go after the wrong person.’

  The memories came back, and I didn’t think I was repeating them out loud but I looked at Mark and knew it had been speech rather than thought.

  I said, ‘We went to a hotel where a girl died in a water tank. I don’t care if she’s here. I mean… I don’t care if Seven’s here. Not the girl. Seven’s not important to me any more, what’s important is just… I need to find Trent for Eli, and then get back to the UK to protect my fucking club from fucking Edie Franco.’

  ‘Ron, you looked as though you hadn’t slept in days.’

  ‘I need to go.’

  He tried to stop me and I lost it, grabbing the front of his jacket.

  ‘If you try and stop me I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.’

  He didn’t resist, probably because he didn’t believe I’d actually hurt him. But I wanted to, for the hell of it. Because there was pressure in my head that needed releasing.

  I walked, putting distance between us, struggling to breathe and thinking, Am I having a heart attack?

  There was a bar, so I headed for that, through the swinging doors and into the restrooms where I threw up in the sink. My arms quivered, struggling to support my weight as I vomited grey bile. Then I backed into an empty cubicle and shut the door, slammed down the toilet seat and pulled my knees up to my chin.

  The door and walls were dark green.

  I cupped my hands over my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe, or I was breathing too much. I was having a heart attack. This was what a heart attack felt like, a fist punching you repeatedly in the chest while screaming, Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!

  I reached for my gun – in my pocket or in my waistband, inside my coat – because I was going to shoot myself in the head. But I’d left it in one of the cars.

  For some reason, that took the edge off.

  I wasn’t going to shoot myself, because I couldn’t, and I wasn’t having a heart attack, because I could breathe now, now that everything had stopped shaking…

  I put my hands out and braced myself against the cold walls.

  Outside the restrooms, I could hear some dim activity.

  I stood and pushed open the door of the cubicle. I saw myself in the mirror, breathless and sweating, glowing with adrenalin.

  It was so quiet.

  I smoothed back my hair, rubbed my hands over my face, and left the restroom.

  To my surprise, Mark was waiting for me outside the bar.

  I accepted the cigarette he offered.

  ‘Do you want me to drive you back?’ he asked.

  I hesitated. ‘I’m just gonna go to the airport.’

  ‘Well, then I can drive you.’

  ‘You don’t have to, I’ll get a cab.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t wanna stay another night and… make up some sleep?’

  �
��No, I’ll sleep on the plane,’ I lied.

  I didn’t particularly want to be accompanied on my abdication, for the clearing of my desk, but Mark ended up driving anyway, which I suppose was nice of him.

  But he didn’t belong here. He was one of those foreign things now, another call to avoid.

  Before we got in the car there was a vision of my future, where I looked at him and felt I was on the verge of committing an act of extreme violence. I could just kill him to remove him from my peripheral vision. In my mind I took my gun and shot him twice in the stomach and chest, and we both jerked with the sound of the impact and then I walked away. The idea was almost hypnotic. I even felt the spatter of blood, and it didn’t move me at all.

  ‘One thing though,’ Mark said, and I braced myself. ‘Why are you carrying an old spoon around with you? You said someone gave it to you.’

  I snorted. ‘It’s a souvenir, I guess. Apparently it’s made of gold or something.’

  ‘OK. Well, everybody needs a hobby.’

  Checking my phone in the car, I had an email from Melissa.

  Daisy had stopped trying to contact me, I noticed.

  Mark would mention this to Noel, I knew he would. But Noel wasn’t here, and it wasn’t as if I had to go back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Daisy

  I ran into him somewhere on the South Bank because that was the only place he was happy to talk. It had become an overcast and dramatic evening, which was fitting as Noel wanted to conduct himself like he was in a fucking spy drama.

  ‘Noel!’

  ‘Walk.’ He took me by the arm and dragged me along the riverside.

  ‘Dude, calm down, no one’s listening.’

  ‘I don’t know if we’re all being followed.’

  ‘God, Noel, get off.’ I slowed my pace and managed to reclaim my arm. ‘Where did you see her? Are you absolutely sure? Because I thought I saw her today and—’

  ‘It was her.’

  We took the ramp down from the Centre and walked past the green.

  He continued, ‘I know you think I’ve been doing fuck all with my time off, just getting off my face or whatever, but I have been doing stuff. I knew she was still in London, I don’t know how but… you know how you just know?’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I knew if she was still around she wouldn’t be able to stop going to certain places, National Portrait Gallery and shit like that. I took her there once and… Anyway, I’ve been going there to wander around.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Every day, pretty much. Security there think I’m mental but I’m not a hobo so they couldn’t exactly chuck me out.’

  ‘And you just saw her there?’

  ‘Well yeah. I didn’t expect it so I hid round a corner, just in case there was one person in the fucking place who didn’t think I was insane.’ He brought us to a halt, looked around, then indicated his head behind us and started walking in the opposite direction. ‘So I followed her all day, until she went into a restaurant around Covent Garden. I got a few photos, look.’

  He handed me his phone.

  I squinted and cupped my hand around the screen. I could make out a few blurry shots of Seven from behind, a couple taken from inside the Gallery that had her in profile, and then I recognized someone.

  ‘I know him,’ I said, pointing at a stocky waistcoated man standing with Seven outside a restaurant covered in ivy.

  ‘Sean. I remember you mentioned he stopped by.’

  ‘Yeah, and you got really weird when I tried to ask Ron about it.’

  We stopped by a bench, facing the water. Noel began to sit down but the wood looked damp and he thought better of it. His desire not to be overheard was being overcome by his desire to be warm.

  He pointed at one of the huge cafés under the South Bank and we pulled out chairs beneath an overhang, in the vicinity of some heaters.

  I was starting to get agitated by Noel’s furtive glances.

  He took his phone back. ‘Sean is someone I’ve known of for a while. Irish guy who pretty much just worked for anyone. He even applied… Well, “applied” may not be the right word. He offered his services to us once like four years ago but we had enough people and there was something off about him. He was way too easy to get on with. You know the type.’

  ‘Yeah, those friendly people. Suspicious as fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Anyway, he probably doesn’t think we remember him. But we’ve kept tabs on him, on and off. He tends to work for’ – he lowered his voice in a way that made me snigger – ‘foreigners.’

  ‘Careful, they might hear you. Who’s he working for now then?’

  ‘Russian arseholes. Sure of it.’

  ‘For serious?’

  ‘Yep.’ Noel waved a waitress over. ‘Can I have a double gin and tonic, love?’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘did you want anything?’

  ‘No.’

  He tapped his fingers against the silver tabletop. ‘This is actually doing my head in.’

  ‘Have you told Ronnie?’

  ‘Why would I? You know Mark called and said he turned up in Chicago and had some kind of mental breakdown.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He seemed incredulous. ‘Apparently he showed up for two minutes, had a meltdown and left. Mark thinks he’s gone to Staten Island looking for someone else.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Yeah. This doesn’t bode well. He’s meant to be the stable one.’

  ‘What about Edie?’ I ventured.

  ‘Up to something but I’m not sure what. Everyone’s fucking tainted, Daisy.’ He pulled a face, as if he could smell it. ‘Everyone’s fucking untrustworthy. I fucking bet Mark’s Russian mates tipped him off about Chicago to get him out of the way, but I can’t tell him that because he fucking works for them most of the time. Who knows who he’d side with?’

  He made a good point. As much as I did trust Mark, considered him a friend, I didn’t know how far I could believe his claim he was on my side if I found myself opposed to one of his long-time employers. It wasn’t my tattoos he had scrawled all over his body.

  ‘What about Nic?’ I asked.

  ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe choose your moment. But I think you can trust him.’

  ‘You think?’

  Wow, I thought. He was actually considering my opinion.

  ‘Yeah, I think you can. But don’t discount Mark completely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He has something to prove.’

  A long gin and tonic was placed in front of him and he took out the straw to down half of it.

  He stared into space for a long time, watching people walk by. ‘It was an absolute mind-fuck seeing her again. Didn’t know whether I wanted to hug her or kill her.’

  A pause.

  ‘Kill her,’ he added. ‘No, I wanted to kill her.’

  I nodded. ‘I thought I saw her a couple of times. It was like that “I want to die” feeling of seeing an ex but way worse.’

  ‘Do you think she ever thinks about us?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was always good at ignoring stuff. With her parents, she never thought about it. She told me she never even cried. If you can repress something like that, you can probably repress anything.’

  He looked crushed.

  ‘But it’s not like she didn’t have a conscience,’ I added.

  Had we even talked about this properly before? I wasn’t sure any of us had.

  ‘Sometimes I think she did it all because I hurt her. You know, went back to Caroline for a while. But that just makes it all about me and it was probably all about fucking money.’

  ‘She did care about you, from what I could gather…’ I paused. ‘It might have been something that got out of control. Like, maybe it started off as one thing and became something that she couldn’t get out of.’

  I realised that I was just parroting wha
t Seven had said to me to justify it all, in the club right before I gave her permission to shoot.

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m thinking out loud.’

  I zipped up my grey Harrington and Noel finished his gin and tonic.

  ‘Maybe I should have just fucking ended it, right there.’ He grimaced. ‘I’d be in prison right now but at least it would have been over.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t be over, would it?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘It’d be some fucking relief though. And being banged up would be the easiest way to quit drinking. No G & T’s in there.’

  We both scrolled through the photos again, and sat in silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Ronnie

  Judas got a bad rep. People threw his name around as an insult but they had it wrong. He had a role, like all of us. When you thought about it, we could all hope to be that relevant in the grand scheme of things, part of the plan.

  The Satanist admits to being evil.

  It made sense. Without sin, without these betrayals and disobediences, transgressions, without these deaths, goodness would mean nothing. The very things we prayed for would mean nothing.

  Judas must have felt a similar vindication, even as he hung by the neck with his intestines spilling out of him like a rope ladder. He must have felt a similar conviction to mine, sitting on the plane back to Philadelphia.

  I didn’t go straight home, but took a taxi part of the way so I could stop off in JB’s for a drink.

  Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true Messiahs – Cursed are the god-adorers, for they shall be born sheep!

  I sat at the bar and ordered a bourbon from another girl with blue hair who looked so much like the girl from the park it was uncanny. I did a double-take and watched her out of the corner of my eye.

  Joe appeared from the cellar.

  ‘The wanderer returns! Alice, don’t let this man pay for a drink.’

  They rush on the city. They run on the wall; They climb into the houses, They enter through the windows like a thief.