by Peter Boland
“Well, what does it say?” asked Savage.
“Inconclusive. We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
Savage gave a smug grin. “That’s what people with weak arguments say.”
“No, that’s what people who don’t want a load of earache say.”
“I think I won that one.”
Tannaz tucked her phone in her back pocket. “No way, I’ll do a proper search later and prove it to you with statistics.”
“Did you know eighty-five percent of statistics are made up on the spot?”
Tannaz looked at him, trying to gauge whether he was being serious. “Shut up.”
Savage cracked another broad grin. He enjoyed training Tannaz, and he enjoyed her company even more, especially her feisty banter. She told it like it was, which was exactly what he needed. She reminded him of his daughter. They looked nothing like each other; his daughter Kelly had been fair with long straight hair, while Tannaz was dark with thick lustrous black curls that she mercilessly attacked with clippers up the sides of her head. However, both Tannaz and his Kelly were stubborn, wilful and clever.
“Come on, help me with the sofa,” he said, standing up. “Then we’ll have a cup of tea.”
They each grabbed one end.
“You want hot tea after all that sweating?” asked Tannaz, as they shifted the sofa back into the middle of the room.
“Tea’s good any time.”
Tannaz wiped her brow. “I’d rather have an ice-cold beer.”
“At eleven in the morning?”
“Beer’s good any time.”
“Yeah, and with the cigarettes it will slow down all that lovely speed you’ve got.”
“Okay, I’ll have a lemonade.” Tannaz shrugged.
“I don’t have any lemonade.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not six years old. I’m nearly sixty.”
“So you keep telling me. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and grab that rug over there, if you can manage it at your age. And I owe you money for the fight session.”
“And like I said, I’m doing this for free. It keeps me sane.”
Before he’d met the young Iranian girl, Savage had attempted suicide. Post-traumatic stress had haunted him since leaving the SAS; the sheer weight of deaths pressing on his conscience. He’d always managed to keep it at bay, but after his wife and daughter died—his wife Dawn from cancer, and his daughter Kelly from a bomb in Afghanistan—things had become a whole lot worse, especially after he had retired. He’d started hearing a voice in his head, an aggravating and aggressive voice that teased, pestered and tormented him, constantly trying to persuade him to kill himself as penance for what he’d done in his career. He’d heard the voice so often that he’d even given it a name—Jeff Perkins. It had become louder and more powerful each day to the point where Savage couldn’t take any more. He’d put a gun to his head at one point, nearly pulled the trigger. At the last moment sense prevailed, and he got help.
He’d met Tannaz a few months later when he needed help finding a missing girl. Her ingenuity with a computer had not only led him to the girl, it had probably saved his life. They’d become close friends, and whenever she was near, the berating voice of Jeff Perkins grew dim, skulking back into the shadows. She’d given up her job working in a seedy backstreet computer repair shop to train with Savage. He wasn’t sure what she did for an income now. With her hacking skills he thought it was best not to ask.
Tannaz placed a small side table next to the sofa. “It’s like a monk’s funeral home, this lounge. You need more furniture.”
“Then we’d have more stuff to move back each time we fight.”
“Yeah, but it’d make it more homely, bit cosier. You need more colour in this room. I feel an Ikea expedition coming on.”
“No. No way. I escaped Iraq on foot in the Gulf War, but could I find my way out of Ikea? Place is a maze, a flat-pack maze. Anyway, anything I need I can make myself. And I don’t need anything else in my life right now, apart from a cup of tea.”
The doorbell rang.
Savage went into the hall and opened the front door.
A timid-looking man in his late twenties stood on the doorstep. Mousy bowl-shaped hair hung limply around a pale face, set in a gloomy expression like a washed-out public holiday. He fiddled nervously with the zip on his bomber jacket.
“Excuse me,” he said, not making eye contact. “Are you John Savage?”
“Certainly am. Who wants to know?”
“I think you went to school with my dad, Dave Mosely. I’m his son, Luke.”
Savage looked closer at the guy standing in front of him, his brain slowly catching up. Recognition dawned on him. “Oh, yes, I can see the resemblance. I did go to school with your dad. How is he?”
“Er, he died a couple of months ago.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry. How did he die?”
Luke’s eyes flicked left and right. Unsure how to answer, he eventually said, “His body was found up a tree.”
Chapter 3
Savage invited Luke into the flat and ushered him into the lounge. He took one look at Tannaz and fixed his eyes on the carpet, clearly uncomfortable around women. He stood there awkwardly, doing that not-knowing-where-to-put-his-hands thing, changing their position every second.
“Tannaz, this is Luke,” said Savage.
“Alright,” said Tannaz.
Luke managed a barely audible “Hi.” He still made no eye contact.
Savage gestured at the sofa, inviting him to sit.
“Luke’s dad and I were good friends at school. Unfortunately, he passed away recently.”
“Oh,” said Tannaz. “I’m very sorry.”
Luke didn’t respond. An uncomfortable silence stretched out. It probably lasted only a couple of seconds but felt like a fortnight, until Tannaz said, “I’m going to nip out back for a cigarette or two, and leave you guys to it.” She left the room.
“I’ll make us a cup of tea,” said Savage.
“Thank you,” said Luke.
Savage went into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and returned with two cups of tea in his hand, giving one to Luke. “Hope that’s the right colour.”
“It’s fine, thank you,” Luke replied.
Savage sat next to him. They both took several sips, each unsure how to continue the conversation. Savage broke the silence first. “Do you mind me asking how your father died? You said he was found in a tree.”
Luke swallowed a large gulp of tea, then cleared his throat. “A couple of forest workers found him. His body had been hidden, high in the branches of a large fir tree. The only reason they found him was because they cut the tree down and he fell out.”
Savage wanted to remark about the weird and strange circumstances of his father’s death. He held his tongue, guessing that Luke had probably heard that response from everyone he’d told, accompanied by wide-eyed expressions and gasps of disbelief. He didn’t need someone else adding to his distress.
“So did he die from the impact or…?”
Luke shook his head. “No, he’d been dead for a couple of weeks. They found large quantities of Nembutal in his blood.”
“Nembutal?”
“It’s a drug to help you sleep. In large doses it’s lethal. People take it to commit suicide because it’s peaceful, like going to sleep but you never wake up.”
“Is that what the police think, that it was suicide?”
“Yes.”
Savage pushed his hand through his thinning hair and let out a long breath, grasping for the right words to say. There weren’t any. “I can’t believe it. Poor Dave. He was my best mate at school.”
“He talked about you a lot,” said Luke. “I mean, I didn’t see him that often. He was a bit of a loner. The few times I did meet with
him, your name always came up.”
Savage twisted his mug of tea around and around in his hands, the guilt growing inside him. “I feel bad about not keeping in touch with him. We lost contact after I joined the army, I’m pretty certain I was his only friend. I should’ve made more of an effort. I didn’t even realise he got married and had a son.”
“Oh, he didn’t. Get married, I mean. I was a bit of an accident. He met my mum one night at a gig. She was drunk and on the rebound. Dad happened to be standing next to her, and she was determined to go home with someone. I don’t think he stood a chance, and I was the result. After that she didn’t have anything to do with him, said it was a drunken mistake, so I never knew who he was, she didn’t want him around, told him to stay away. Brought me up on her own. So I never knew him, grew up without a dad. I mean, my mum was great, loved me to bits, but I wished he’d made an effort to see me. Even when I got in contact with him when I was older, he was pretty aloof. Uncomfortable around me. Don’t know whether it was guilt or if he just didn’t know how to act. Last time I saw him was when Mum died. I said we should link up on Facebook or swap email addresses. He never had a computer. Hated the things. Just liked his vinyl and record player. Real old school.”
Savage smiled as sympathetically as he could.
Luke took a sip of tea and then said, “What was he like at school?”
Savage took his time and then said, “Same, really. Quiet and shy. Would have faded into the background if he could. I never really noticed him, until one day our music teacher allowed us to bring in a single to play on the school record player at the end of term. Most people brought in sappy seventies pop stuff. A few of us cool kids brought in some proper music, I think I brought in The Who, someone else brought in Led Zeppelin. You have to remember back in those days, the best band in the world, The Jam, hadn’t been signed yet. When it was your dad’s turn, he put on Iggy Pop’s ‘I Want To Be Your Dog’. I’d never heard anything like it. First time I’d heard proper punk rock. It blew me away. I wanted to know more about it. End of the lesson I went straight up to him and we got talking, became instant friends. Every break time we’d hang out and talk about music and new bands we’d heard listening to John Peel’s late-night radio show; back then that was the only place you could hear alternative stuff.”
Luke smiled, his face losing some of its washed-out complexion. “My dad mentioned your break-time chats. Always made him happy. And he also remembered the day you two met. It was the last time he ever got bullied, he told me. Before he met you he got picked on every day. Bullies would rip his blazer off on the way to school and rub it in dog shit. No matter how hard he washed it off in the toilet, the stink wouldn’t go away, so he smelt of dog shit all day. As soon as they knew John Savage was my dad’s friend, nobody ever bullied him again.”
The room went silent.
Savage’s mind raced back to every moment he could remember with Dave. Had every incident in Dave’s life led up to the point where he’d had no choice but to take his life? Each tiny decision made, every word uttered and thought he’d had, every corner turned left instead of right, had it all conspired against him? Incremental step by incremental step, edging him closer to the inevitable. Like values being fed into a sprawling equation, each one calculated to determine his terrible fate. Or had it been with him all his life, buried deep in his DNA? A ticking genetic time bomb waiting to go off, implanted by nature to weed out the ones that simply didn’t suit life. Removing him from the gene pool.
At a loss for words Savage offered his condolences once more.
Luke waved them away. “It’s really not necessary, he was a stranger to me.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“If it’s uncomfortable, just tell me to mind my own business.”
“Go ahead, what is it?”
“The business with the tree. Why did he commit suicide up a tree?”
“Thought you might ask that. Police said it’s very rare. Some people, people like my dad, don’t want anyone to know they’ve committed suicide. They feel ashamed, even though they can’t see any other way out. They want to kill themselves but they don’t want their family and friends to know, or anyone for that matter. Like you said, people like my dad just want to fade into the background, and they don’t want any random dog walker or jogger to have the trauma of stumbling across their body. So, they climb a tree, strap themselves into the branches where no one can see them and kill themselves out of sight.”
“Jeez, I never knew that.”
“He climbed up the tree as high as he could go, secured himself to a branch with dozens of those hooked bungee cords, you know, the ones you use on roof racks. Took the Nembutal and slipped away listening to his favourite mixtape on his ancient Walkman, wearing his big old mod parka.”
“That’s tragic.”
“His body would’ve stayed up there the police reckon. When the tree came down, the impact tore the bungee cords free.”
Savage got up and walked around the room, trying to process the shocking information, and Savage didn’t shock easily. “I suppose it makes sense. Grisly, but it makes sense. Your dad never wanted to be noticed in life and I suppose the same was true in death.”
He looked out of the window. It needed cleaning, one of the many drawbacks of living in London. Even with the congestion charge, everything eventually went black. Savage turned to face Luke. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Before Christmas. I asked him if he wanted to have Christmas dinner round my place. He said he had other plans. I’m guessing those other plans meant he was preparing to take his life.”
“Did he show any signs of being unhappy or depressed?”
“Thing is, my dad always looked unhappy. His life had been a bit of a disappointment. One dead-end job after another. Then he was on benefits. Tiny room in grotty social housing. Things just didn’t go his way. It was like life didn’t really suit him, made him uncomfortable.”
“And when did they find his body?”
“Eleventh of January. Police think he’d been dead for around seventeen days.”
Savage did a quick calculation. “Oh no, so it could’ve been Christmas Day when he took his life?”
“That’s what they think.”
Savage shook his head. “Poor, Dave. I should’ve kept in touch with him. Met up with him for a drink now and then or gone to a gig with him. Maybe this could’ve been avoided.”
“I don’t think so. I made an effort but he didn’t want to be helped. He just wanted out, you know. Some people just do.”
Savage looked Luke in the eye, grabbed him by the hand and squeezed it firmly. “Listen, Luke, if there’s anything I can do for you, you name it. Anything.”
Luke thought for a moment. Looked sheepish, picking at the skin around his nails. “Well, there is one thing.”
“Sure, what do you need?”
Luke took a deep breath. “I need to pick some things up from my dad’s flat.”
Savage waited for the rest of the request, but no more came.
“Really? That’s it?”
Luke nodded.
“You want me to help you clear some stuff out of your dad’s place?”
Luke nodded again, looking terrified, eyes rimmed with worry.
“Are you sure that’s all?” said Savage, just to make sure.
“Yes. Well, it’s really just his record collection, it’s worth quite a bit, at least a few hundred pounds, and his record player.”
“Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can do for you?” asked Savage. “That doesn’t sound like very much.”
“Believe me, just having you with me would be enough.”
“Why’s that?”
“Dad’s flat, I mean his room, was in a pretty horrible place called Tivoli Gardens in Thornhill, one o
f Southampton’s worst housing estates. He always told me weird stuff went on there.”
“What kind of stuff?” asked Savage.
“Wouldn’t say. I know he was scared. Police won’t even go there, unless they’re in riot gear. I’m worried I wouldn’t make it out of there alive with boxes of rare LPs under my arms.”
“Well, worry no more. I’ve got a van outside; we can go there right now if you want.”
Relief spread across Luke’s face, he looked lighter somehow, as if he’d been filled with helium. “Really? Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Savage replied.
“That would be brilliant. Listen, I don’t have any money for petrol, but my dad had a signed copy of The Jam’s first album. I know he’d want you to have it…”
Savage shook his head. “No, no way, Luke. Much as I’d love a signed copy of In The City, you keep it. Besides, I’ve got plenty of cash. My late wife was good with money, made sure I had a nice fat pension for my retirement. I could go out and buy one tomorrow and still pay my gas bill. Driving you to Southampton is the least I can do.”
“Please,” Luke replied, fidgeting. “My dad would’ve wanted you to have it, I’m sure of it.”
“Definitely not. A signed copy of The Jam’s first album must be worth a few quid, that could come in handy. Put it to a holiday or something. Okay?”
Tannaz returned, rattling a creased-up carton of orange juice. “Savage, why is everything in your fridge about a year past its sell-by date?”
“Because sell-by dates are made up by big supermarkets so you throw away good food and buy more. I bet it’s fine.”
She held out the carton to Savage. “You drink it then.”
“I’m fine. Got a nice cup of tea, thanks.”
Luke’s face became anxious.
“What’s wrong?” asked Savage.
“Sorry,” Luke said, wringing his hands. “It’s just, Dad’s place. The guys who live there, some of them are violent and I’m pretty sure they’re all drug addicts and alcoholics, it might get… physical.”