by Amy Lord
I had a pair of leather driving gloves in my jacket pocket. I put them on carefully, flexing my hands until they clung like another skin.
‘You never should have touched her.’ I eyeballed him savagely. A flood of images overwhelmed me as I thought about what he’d done, what he must have felt. ‘She’s too good for you. Look at the state of you.’
He sagged further, the fight draining away. I stepped forward and snatched the chair away. His hands slid away, dropping uselessly at his sides. The bag squad formed a semicircle behind me; there was nowhere for him to go.
‘I want to hear you say it.’
He looked at me. ‘I don’t…’
I slapped him. The sound of my leather-dressed palm striking his cheek sliced through the silence. He gasped.
‘Say it! You’re a pathetic fuck who could never get a woman like that. You couldn’t even take what you wanted. I bet you couldn’t get it up, could you, you dirty old pervert? So you took it out on her. What kind of a man are you? Nothing. You’re nothing.’
His breath came in shallow gulps. When I saw the tears in his eyes I started to laugh. I couldn’t believe it. ‘I bet she didn’t even cry like that when you were whipping her with your belt. You’re a fucking disgrace.’
‘Please… I’m sorry.’
I snorted. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, but it’s a bit fucking late for that. You don’t think I’m going to forget about this do you?’
He wiped at his eyes with the cuff of his shirt. His snivels were grating on my nerves. I grabbed a baton from the grasp of the soldier closest to me. It nestled in my palm like it had always been there. I swung my arm up high, forming a beautiful arc as I brought it down across his face. His nose broke with a satisfying crunch. He tried to squeal, but he couldn’t get the air into his lungs. Blood burbled from his nostrils as he clutched at his face, knees buckling.
‘You… better… be… fucking… sorry.’ With each word I hit him again, the baton striking hard against his loose flesh. He tried to curl into a ball on the floor, snuffling and weeping, not even trying to get away. I kicked him in the gut. ‘Fucking bastard! Dare to touch my woman and think you’re the one with the power.’
Adrenalin coursed through my body: I could see everything, hear his bones as they cracked and tore at the flesh. I felt it all. I felt myself growing taller, overtaken by the rage, by the power.
Flinging the baton down, I reached for his collar, trying to drag him off the floor.
‘Get up!’ I screamed. He didn’t move.
I swivelled to face the bag squad. ‘Get him up!’
They sprang into action, hands hauling him up off the ground. And then I was on him. It happened so quickly, those few moments. I can’t recall the words I screamed in his face, as my spit sprayed across his mottled skin. I remember my hands locked around his throat as though I was watching myself from afar, trying to force my fingers to meet around his neck. Somehow I manoeuvred him to the balcony. I pushed him up against the railing, his body leaning backwards, eyes wide in terror, arms windmilling uselessly; he tried to clutch at anything he could to save himself.
‘I didn’t know…’
I didn’t care what he had to say. I was in no state to listen. All I could see was her pain. All caused by this disgusting animal who thought he had the right to touch something that belonged to me. He wasn’t the first man I’d taken apart for her.
His fingers clawed at my face and, like that, I let go. His own weight carried him over the banister and down, down, down. His retched shriek filled the theatre. It only took a second for him to fall. When he hit the ground there was an almighty crash and then the echo of silence.
Lucia began to scream.
*
They took his body away in the back of a van. Half a dozen men had to haul the corpse out of the theatre, along narrow corridors, bouncing the body bag unceremoniously down the stairs.
The convoy of black vans pulled away with an urgent screech of tyres. They never were much for subtlety. Lucia and I waited on the street for my driver to collect us. She held herself anxiously, rubbing her arms as she stared off into the middle distance, a slick of tears drying on her cheeks, eyeliner seeping into the fine cracks under her eyes, making her look years older. She had that expression I often saw in new recruits, after their first interrogation, when the guilt still had a place to take hold.
I rested my hand on her shoulder and we stood there, waiting, each absorbed in our own thoughts. I suspected that we were thinking the same thing, but it meant something different to each of us.
‘Is it always like that?’
She spoke so softly it took me a moment to process her words.
‘Like what?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Like… wild animals hunting down their prey. Do you kill them all?’
Her eyes shone. I knew that she was asking me about Matthew. I pulled my hand away, the pressure of her shoulder still tangible on my palm.
‘No. Not all of them.’
‘What happens to them? Do you let them go home?’
I looked at the floor; I couldn’t bear the intensity of her gaze. There was a crust of dried blood on the toe of my shoe that I hadn’t noticed earlier. I pulled a crumpled handkerchief out of my trouser pocket and bent down to scrub at the stain.
When I stood up, her attention had drifted away, caught by a couple who were walking slowly along the other side of the street, his arm around her shoulders. She grinned up at him, her face wide open, her fingers curled around the zipper on his top, gently tugging it up and down.
‘We couldn’t let them go home, not afterwards. But not many get to leave. We don’t always kill them, but sometimes we don’t need to.’
Her eyes followed the young couple as they drifted down the street and turned the corner. Their laughter floated towards us on a warm current of air.
‘I used to be like that. Happy. Matthew would hold my hand when we were out walking. Whenever he smiled at me, he would squeeze my hand. I always loved that; it was like a heartbeat between us.’ She looked at me over her shoulder, arms folded. ‘I’m never going to see him again, am I?’
‘No. Probably not.’
Her face was expressionless. ‘I know he’s not dead. I still feel him sometimes.’ She put her hand to her chest and clenched it tightly against her heart. ‘But he’s gone all the same.’ She spread her fingers, like leaves soaring away on the wind. Like letting go.
I took hold of her chin and she turned her body towards me. My thumb caressed her jaw. ‘You know that I’ll never let anyone hurt you, not again. Not ever.’
Her eyes were liquid, staring up at me. I felt myself falling.
‘I love you, Lucia. And I want you to be mine. I’m not an idiot; I know you have to blame me for what happened to your husband. But that will fall away in time. I’ll make you love me the way you loved him. More than that; I can give you so much more.’
I kissed her and she responded; her lips tasted like salt.
When we broke apart the driver had pulled smoothly to the kerb and was standing with the door open. Lucia gave the tiniest of smiles, touching the tips of her fingers to my cheek before she slid into the back seat. I climbed in beside her.
The driver accelerated away swiftly, merging easily into traffic. Lucia’s hand was resting on the seat between us. I took hold of it and squeezed.
‘I want to marry you.’
I caught a glimpse of the driver’s eyes as they flicked up towards the mirror, then back to the road. He gave a small cough.
Lucia didn’t meet my eye; instead she stared at our hands, fingers entwined. Delicately, she pulled her hand back. A pit wrenched open in my stomach. Her wedding rings caught the light, the diamonds flashing. She looked at me deliberately and began to twist the rings off her finger. Stretching her fingers, she slipped the jewellery into her bag and put her hand back in mine.
‘I want to marry you too. I want Clara to have a father.’
My smile waver
ed at the mention of the girl. But I knew I couldn’t separate them. In time perhaps, she might accept my presence in her life. And if she didn’t, there was nothing to keep her in my house.
‘I’ll always look after you both.’
I leaned forward to kiss my fiancée.
Seventeen
I spent that night at Lucia’s, for the first time. Instead of going straight home, I took her to one of the officers’ clubs in the city. I wanted to celebrate our engagement and she wanted to drown out the image of the theatre manager falling to his death.
It was late when we finally went back to her flat. The lift was out of order so we staggered up the dozen flights of stairs. I don’t remember falling into bed, other than a brief moment of satisfaction that this was another place where I had managed to replace her husband.
I woke in the morning to the weak rays of sunlight filtering through the gap in the curtains where we had failed to draw them shut. My head was pounding. I groaned, dragging an arm across my face to protect me from the light.
Lucia was still fast asleep next to me, curled up tightly on her side, her dark hair spread out across the pillowcase. Rolling over, I touched it, smoothing the ends between my fingertips. She moaned softly. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling, where a patch of damp festered above us.
I dozed for a while and was woken again by a noise from the next room. Clara was stirring. I listened to her getting out of bed and pottering around her room, opening and closing drawers as gently as she could.
When she crept out to use the bathroom, I pretended to be asleep. There was barely a whisper as she scurried by. The bathroom door clicked shut and I opened my eyes. My mouth tasted like death. As she turned on the water, I heaved myself out of bed and stumbled bare chested to the kitchen, switching on the kettle to make a coffee.
By the time the kettle shut off, I was sitting at the table, swallowing my drink as though my life depended on it. I could feel the liquid flooding my body, rehydrating the dried-out cells.
The bathroom door opened. She was wearing her school uniform, a white shirt tucked carefully into black trousers. Her feet were bare. She’d attempted to plaster her mother’s make-up onto her face, apparently to cover a massive bruise that had blossomed on her cheek. Obviously she still had a lot to learn about painting her face.
‘I made you a cup of tea,’ I said, indicating the Mickey Mouse mug that sat on the table in front of me. ‘Come and sit down.’
She looked as though she was considering making a break for it. But where would she go? The defeat on her face was stark when she sat down and picked up the cup.
‘Who did that to your face?’ I asked, keeping my voice low so Lucia could sleep.
Clara’s hands curled around the mug. She stared into the murky depths of the tea. ‘No one.’
‘That didn’t work when your mother tried it – do you think I’m going to fall for it from you? You’re nowhere near the actress she is.’
The girl snuck a glance at me. I looked back levelly, took a sip of coffee.
‘Do you want some breakfast? I can do toast.’ There was half a loaf of white bread on the counter, wrapped up in plastic.
She nodded. ‘Okay.’
I busied myself with the food, leaving her to her silence.
When the toast was ready, I returned to the table, a plate in each hand. She fell on hers like she hadn’t eaten for a week. I nibbled at the crusts, feeling my stomach roil.
‘So are you going to tell me about it then?’
She finished chewing and swallowed. Gave a shrug. ‘Just some girls at school. They don’t like me.’
‘They don’t like you, or they don’t like that your dad was arrested?’
The girl put down her toast and looked me dead in the eye. ‘What do you care?’
I glanced across at her mother, who was muttering in her sleep, the covers twisted around her legs.
‘Look, we both know the reason I’m here is your mother; it has nothing to do with you. You might not be able to understand it yet, but when something affects her, it affects me too. And you’re important to her.’
She studied me. I couldn’t read her expression. With a small nod, she asked, ‘What’s that?’
I had a tattoo on my chest, above my heart. It had started life as an eagle, which was the crest of my unit in the military. But over time I’d added to it. The design had become more intricate, spreading down across my ribcage and under my left arm. It disappeared under the waistband of my trousers.
‘I got it when I joined the army.’
She finished her toast. ‘I should probably get ready for school.’
I reached out and caught her wrist as she went to get up. ‘These girls, is this the first time they’ve hit you?’
She looked uncomfortable. ‘Kind of. But it doesn’t matter.’
I frowned. Like mother, like daughter.
‘Is that the only bruise they gave you?’
She coloured, looking at her feet.
‘It’s not is it? Show me.’
Clara shook her head fiercely. ‘No. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Show me.’
Blood burning in her cheeks, she untucked her shirt and hitched it up. She turned in a slow circle so that I could see the full extent of the damage. Bursts of blackness marred her milky skin, like storm clouds threatening. She tugged her shirt back down.
‘What did they do to you?’
Her voice wobbled. ‘They hit me with hockey sticks when I was getting dressed after PE.’
I felt a familiar anger spreading through my gut. ‘Tell me their names.’
‘No, no I can’t.’
I put a hand on her shoulder. Standing next to her, I realised how small she was, although not quite as fine boned as her mother.
‘Yes, you can. You’re going to tell me.’
For a moment, I thought she would. But instead she cried, ‘No!’ and fled to her room, the door banging shut. I looked quickly at Lucia, but she was still lost, deep in her dreams.
*
On the way to work, I ordered the driver to take a detour. He pulled up outside Clara’s school: an imposing red-brick building that looked as though it might once have been an orphanage, or some other kind of sterile Victorian institution.
Slamming the door, I straightened my jacket and marched inside, the medals on my chest all neatly in place. In the entrance foyer, a woman in heavy-rimmed spectacles sat behind a sliding glass window, vague office chatter filling the unseen space behind her.
As I approached, she slid the window open, hissing surreptitiously over her shoulder. The office fell silent. I caught sight of half a dozen women in dowdy blouses and skirts, all hunched over their desks or rummaging through filing cabinets. One of them glanced up in my direction, then quickly looked away.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ the receptionist asked.
I gave her my most charming smile. ‘I’d like to speak with the head teacher please…’ I paused to read the name badge pinned to her chest. ‘… Gloria.’
She smiled back. ‘Can I tell him what it’s regarding?’
‘It’s about my… daughter.’ I stumbled over the word, unsure how else to refer to the girl. The school wouldn’t speak to me if they thought I wasn’t a relative. I suppose I would technically be responsible for her soon enough. ‘She’s been having problems with some of the other girls.’
The receptionist was flustered. ‘Oh dear, I must say, we don’t stand for that kind of thing here. I hope it isn’t anything too serious?’
She gave me an inquisitive look, but didn’t seem to expect an answer. I smiled thinly as she picked up the telephone to dial the head teacher’s office, allowing my attention to wander so I didn’t seem to be listening in.
‘What’s your daughter’s name, sir?’ Her hand was over the receiver.
‘It’s Clara. Clara Winter.’
The receptionist stared at me. I could almost see the question forming on her lips,
but she held back. Instead she relayed the information to whoever was on the other end of the line.
When she hung up, her demeanour was serious. ‘If you’d like to wait there, someone will be along shortly to take you through to the head’s office.’ She gestured to a row of leather chairs along one wall, beside a coffee table arrayed with old magazines. I thanked her and took a seat. She slid the glass panel shut sharply.
It wasn’t long before the interior door opened and a dour man in a navy blue suit appeared. He held out a hand and introduced himself as the head teacher; I’d been expecting a secretary to collect me.
I followed him along the corridor, as teenagers in uniform darted around us, late for their lessons. He barked at a girl who was chewing gum and she paled, rushing to find the nearest bin.
A bell rang as he ushered me into his office and asked me to take a seat.
‘So, Major Jackson, what is it I can do for you today?’
His grey eyes studied me; nothing got past a man like this.
‘I want you to deal with the students who are bullying my daughter, before I’m forced to do something myself.’
Eighteen
Our interrogations had been going on for so long now that they’d slipped into a routine. Whenever I came into the room, our professor would rush to tell me something, anything that he thought I might want to hear.
Then I would pretend to huff and threaten, refusing to believe until he revealed something else, something that could be verified.
The saddest thing was he’d long since given up everything he could. Now he settled for rattling around in what parts of his memory I’d left untouched, striving for something new, someone he could incriminate. I knew that he always picked people who were beyond my reach in one way or another: this one was years dead, lost in a car accident; this one had a powerful uncle who wouldn’t allow them to be touched; that one had already fled the country for safer climes.
But we clung to the dance. We played our roles. After it was complete, he would grin at me crookedly through his broken teeth and ask after my woman. I would laugh and tell him crude stories, all lads together.