The Siren

by Alison Bruce

  ‘I don’t give a shit what you do outside work.’

  It was another very good point.

  ‘What’s funny?’ snapped Kincaide.

  Goodhew turned away. ‘Let’s just go.’

  The anger had left him, and Kincaide seemed to sense this. They headed back to Parkside Station, and would have made the journey in complete silence if Kincaide’s mobile hadn’t rung. He switched it to hands-free and they were both greeted by the voice of DI Marks.

  ‘Any progress, Michael?’

  ‘Nothing yet, sir.’

  ‘Goodhew with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘No news here either,’ Marks continued. I’m leaving Kimberly Guyver’s house now, and PC Gully will stay with her. I want you two to knock it on the head for tonight and meet me back at the station at 8 a.m. All of us will be better for a fresh start.’

  Goodhew was glad he wasn’t driving, as he didn’t want to have to keep his eyes at road level. Instead he stared up above the rooftops towards the tangerine glow that bled from the streetlamps, staining the indigo background of the sky. He then looked in the direction of Mill Road, but was unable to distinguish any difference in the light visible from that part of the city. He wondered whether the blaze was finally over.

  Their car journey was short but claustrophobic; the city seemed huge by comparison. It always held the answers for him, so it was inevitable that he chose not to make the short walk home but instead found himself walking in the opposite direction at 3 a.m.

  Every irrelevant thought regarding Kincaide was left behind in the dusty car park of Parkside Station. He knew he would end up at the Golinski house but didn’t hurry; he wanted to enjoy the company of his thoughts along the way. They came tentatively at first, too fleeting to grasp or analyse.

  A breath of unease.

  The shadow of loss.

  The distraction of sirens blotting out every other sound, demanding to be observed and obeyed.

  A taste of fear. Not a taste for it. The pedestrian who had run towards him earlier had manifested more of it than any of the idle bystanders had displayed. And Kimberly Guyver also, before he’d known her name. In his mind’s eye she appeared paper-thin with it. Distressed. Taut. Beautiful and brittle.

  He pulled himself up short before he stepped off the kerb.

  What was it that jarred?

  A taxi was the only vehicle in sight, and he had plenty of time to cross the road before it reached him, but he was aware of it only in the abstract, he had no sense of its speed or distance from him. Its headlights shone steadily and ever closer. He watched it intently, like it was delivering the answer.

  A light went on, but it was nothing to do with the taxi.

  Yes, Kimberly Guyver was beautiful, but with relief he realized that this adjective hadn’t come to him in the distorted glow of the fire. He’d seen her before sometime, when her black hair had shone in the sunlight and her bare skin was tanned and radiant. Her dark and petulant features had turned many heads, including his own. But the memory was translucent, dissolving into nothing as soon as he tried to identify it. Tonight he’d only seen her desperation, but without doubt he recognized her from somewhere else. For now he just couldn’t remember where.

  This shifted his priorities so that he never turned into Gwydir Street, instead following his new thoughts until they took him in a full circle back to Parker’s Piece, and towards the empty building that stood on the far side. The first three floors were in darkness but a single light shone from his attic window. No one else lived in any part of the building, and the light worked on a timer, set to switch on from 7 p.m. until whenever he eventually made it home and turned it off.

  Weariness caught up with him as he climbed the silent flights of stairs to his front door. He turned off the light in the window, then sat down in the nearest chair, feeling strangely reluctant to cast off his smoke-impregnated clothes. He only meant to stay there for a minute or two, but was still in the same place when he fell into an exhausted sleep.

  The television set had a seven-inch screen, and a small aerial like a tilted halo. The picture was poor, but as long as Stefan didn’t move the sound remained clear. Stefan didn’t move at all.

  A reporter was at the scene, using a lot of words, a lot of meaningless spiel best interpreted as ‘We know nothing’.

  She stood to one side of the camera shot, and over her shoulder was his house. He watched the smoke, then her mouth move, then the smoke again. Smoke, mouth, smoke, his gaze flicking back and forth across the screen until it got boring.

  He knew what they’d find there: a lesson in what happened when betrayal overstepped the point of possible forgiveness.

  Sometimes it wasn’t enough for people to suffer pain; sometimes it was more important to show everyone else the price that must be paid. Those were the unwritten rules. The unfair part was the notion that not everyone would be made to pay.

  But, as he thought it over, he was sure that would not be allowed to happen here.

  Mouth, smoke, mouth. Not so boring, after all.

  Riley’s bowl tipped over and the contents hit the floor, splashing outwards like vomit. He didn’t look at all concerned. In the whole of his short life, he’d never had to feel fear.

  TWELVE

  At 5 a.m. Kimberly slid open the sash window. She felt like she’d been holding her breath for hours, but now, with her lungs tight with anxiety and the house feeling stale, she admitted to herself that she needed air. There was no breeze but clean air soon filled the room by replacing the warmth which slipped outside.

  Night had almost passed, streetlamps were glowing and lights had come on in a few of the houses bordering the cemetery, but the brightest by far shone from Rachel’s house: a floodlight that was directed on the front elevation, but glowing above the remains of the collapsed roof like an unnatural, clinical-white sun about to rise and shine on her life.

  Kimberly was neither a church-goer nor a hypocrite but her brain repeated two words: Please God. Please God.

  Over the last hours, her hopes and ambitions had withered, her sense of independence become frail. Riley had become her every reason to live, and he was out there somewhere she couldn’t see, couldn’t reach.

  Please God. Please God.

  She closed her eyes and tried to feel her child’s spirit; she believed her love for him was strong enough to know whether he was safe. Whether he was alive. Whether he was waiting for her – bewildered, crying, feeling abandoned.

  I’m sorry. Please, God, help me.

  She knew that gnawing emptiness too well. The futile search for love and safe harbour painted her every single childhood memory, a pattern of false hope and abandonment and finally anger. Producing a fury that had smothered all her vulnerabilities, and still rode on her shoulder.

  That rage wouldn’t do anything for her now except choke her ability to think clearly. Tears slipped from her tightly closed eyes and the fresh air seemed to calcify within her body, gripping her chest, burning her lungs. She fought to wrench in a breath and whispered to the open window, ‘I love you, Riley.’

  Goodhew left his flat at 6 a.m., and was in the water by ten-past. He was the only swimmer present; in fact the pool was officially still closed but the lifeguards knew him well enough to let him in and trust him not to drown. He swam for forty minutes, and on several occasions swam a full length on a single breath, eyes open and watching for the blur of the end wall as it came into reach.

  He’d long since learnt that starting the day this way mitigated the effects of his perpetual sleeplessness. A distant clock chimed seven as he pushed open the outer door of Parkside Station, and the first person he saw there was Mel.

  She’d changed her hair; it was shorter and a little less spiky, more Titian than red now. It suited her.

  In that first second they both instinctively smiled – open and spontaneous – before settling on expressions that were a little more guarded.

  ‘Why are you here t
his early?’ he asked.

  She screwed up her nose. ‘Stuff to sort out.’

  He immediately searched her face for any sign of upset. ‘Everything OK?’ he asked.

  She understood and a small thank-you of a smile reappeared in one corner of her mouth. ‘Yeah, yeah. I mean stuff here, just work things. Don’t worry.’

  He nodded and the silence between them turned into one of those unnaturally long gaps. Mel salvaged the moment by flourishing one of her almost legendary Post-it notes.

  ‘By the way, the Guyver woman’s gone back to the house in Gwydir Street.’

  ‘What’s happened now?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘Nothing – she just wants to be there. It makes sense, I guess. She’d want to be the first to know, right?’

  ‘And Marks took her?’

  ‘No, Gully. You know, the new woman?’

  ‘But Marks was OK with that?’

  ‘Upstairs couldn’t get Marks on his mobile so she left a message with me, knowing that I’d see him as soon as he came in.’

  ‘So he’s definitely coming here first?’

  ‘How should I know? I get here early to catch up on some admin and suddenly I’ve been promoted to station oracle. He’s back at eight, that’s all I know.’ She slapped the Post-it note on Goodhew’s sleeve. ‘This is what I get for having the desk nearest the entrance, isn’t it?’

  Goodhew balled the paper and dropped it into the bin. ‘No need to mention this to Marks, I’ll explain when I see him.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said.

  He turned for the door and she turned back to her PC. Their conversation had ended a little abruptly but for now, at least, that was the best way.

  Gully had parked as close to the Golinski house as possible. In this street it was impossible to be more than a few feet from someone’s front door, or someone else’s net curtains. Gully’s patrol car was now at the side of the road and within fifty yards of the Golinski house. A little too close to everything for comfort. She sat in the driver’s seat, Kimberly Guyver right behind her, thus easily visible in the rear-view mirror if she chose to look. For now, though, Gully was slightly relieved that she had the choice.

  The task of staying with Kimberly had sounded deceptively simple. Kimberly had called it baby-sitting, and Gully had really thought it might be that straightforward: a few hours spent with a restless but exhausted charge. Gully knew that she was only a junior officer, that she carried no weight in any part of the investigation, and that her relationship with each of her new colleagues was just beginning.

  She’d immediately picked up on Kimberly’s discomfort whenever around the police, and Gully’s instincts told her this extended to all kinds of authority figures – including those who pushed bureaucracy, or anyone who colluded with them. It was logical then that Gully’s own inexperience and unfamiliarity with the official process were the very reasons that Kimberly had made her the channel for all her hopes.

  Gully never intentionally shirked anything but this particular responsibility rested heavily on her. She could have argued that it wasn’t hers to carry but, more than that, she felt it wasn’t hers to avoid.

  It was when she and Kimberly conversed that she sensed it most. Therefore Gully feared showing the wrong emotions, and similarly that she might show either too much or too little of the acceptable ones: sympathy, promise, faith and even strength. Gully felt under pressure not to make any mistakes in her interaction with Kimberly. Therefore a few minutes with no eye contact or conversation was unlikely to harm either of them.

  She now absorbed the mess outside: same event, different aftermath.

  The fire had left Gwydir Street looking hung-over and dishevelled, like it had awoken to face cleaning up the last traces of some rowdy carnival that had pushed its way through the narrow thoroughfare. Where cars were still allowed to park, they’d been jammed into too few spaces, standing non-parallel and untidy. Many curtains were still rucked from people peering out and some front doors gaped open and probably had been since first light.

  The road was wet, the pavements strewn with cigarette ends and partly burnt paper. When a man stooped to pick up a piece, she recognized him at once as Goodhew, the detective she’d heard about but hadn’t yet met. The piece of paper was white and narrow, maybe out of a notepad or similar. He turned it over, and back again, then he put it in his pocket. The other pieces would soon be trodden into the pavement, but for now they fluttered in tiny ticker-tape-like shreds.

  He looked about her own age, though she guessed he had to be a couple of years older, but twenty-five maximum. She didn’t even know if it was possible to be a detective sooner than that. So, assuming there was no such thing as a buy-it-yourself detective badge, he had to be sharp; probably a bit of a nerd as well as a high-flyer. She thought that he was probably here because he’d decided to interfere with her morning and it grated on her.

  He tapped on the driver’s window and gestured for her to get out of the car. She removed her seatbelt and climbed out, each movement as clipped as her tone. ‘What?’

  He held out his hand. ‘I’m DC Goodhew. Gary.’

  They shook hands but she didn’t smile, and forgot to introduce herself. ‘I know who you are.’ She tried to look confident but was aware how her eyebrows had drawn together, locking her forehead in an involuntary scowl. ‘I left a message for DI Marks, so he knows we’re both down here.’

  ‘He’s not in, so he doesn’t know yet. Mel passed your note to me, and it seemed odd, so I just want to make sure that everything’s OK.’

  ‘She wanted to come back here. I think she’s been awake for most of the night, and of course she’s desperate for news.’ Gully heard herself making too many excuses, talking away any illusion of assertiveness, but she was finding it hard to stop. ‘She wanted to stay here last night but, of course, that wouldn’t have been sensible . . .’

  ‘And this is?’

  ‘Why not? She’s not under arrest and she’s had no news yet of her son or her best mate.’ Gully managed to stop herself talking before she was interrupted, and challenged him with a look of determination.

  ‘Because . . .’ A deep irritation filled the word; he must have heard it too because he paused for breath. ‘Look, if they suddenly find a body in that wreckage, you’re going to have the locals right in your face. Not to mention the press. You’ve spent some time with her, so do you think that’s fair?’

  Maybe if she’d held his steady gaze, and had the courage of her own convictions, it would have been different. She could have answered that, yes, it was the right decision, and only realized the flaw in her judgment at a later and more humiliating moment. Instead, though, she glanced at Kimberly and understood how much more vulnerable she’d now made her.

  Gully’s cheeks flushed. She wished there was some dignified way out of this, but he was just standing there while she squirmed, and this smart-arse detective was looking on like it was the first time he’d ever seen someone screw up.

  And she was blushing again – just the thought that she was at risk of blushing made it happen, the medical term being ‘idiopathic craniofacial erythema’. It was virtually untreatable, and according to various family members, boyfriends and acquaintances it was either cute or funny. Ha-bloody-ha. She knew that any attempt to keep her feelings private would trigger it automatically.

  She shook her head, then reddened further. ‘Shit.’ She turned her face away. Shit, shit, shit.

  ‘You’ve been up all night, so you’re bound to be really tired . . .’ He stopped as soon as he saw her anger now turning on him.

  ‘Hang on, I can see exactly where you’re going with this. I can see I ballsed up, but don’t patronize me, please.’ She phrased the please more like an insult than a request.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Not much.’ She poked a finger in his direction. ‘Why don’t you put it down to hormones as well as tiredness?’

  ‘No,’ he said flatly, ‘I’m not going dow
n that road. And if you want to, that’s up to you. But not here, not now.’ He took one step back, as if he’d done his bit of damage and now he was ready to walk away.

  Her bad temper evaporated as quickly as it had arrived. ‘Just back off,’ she said more quietly, ‘I don’t need favours. I appreciate your advice, but I’ll see Marks and put my hand up to it.’

  ‘You’d better get over to Parkside or back to Miss Guyver’s house, then, Marks is due to get in at eight.’ Goodhew started reaching forward to open the car door for her, but stopped abruptly. ‘Too late,’ he observed.

  Activity outside the Golinski house had suddenly ceased, the fire crew now gathered in a fatigued and dirty group. They were being briefed by the fire officer.

  One of them was skinny and squatted on the balls of his feet, leaning his elbows on his knees, his body taking the shape of a question mark. He wiped his face a couple of times, taking several attempts to clear the worst of the grime from his eyes. He didn’t look in the direction of the patrol car, but to Gully it was still obvious that what he was feeling was pity, and all of it directed at Kimberly. Goodhew knew that one of them should go over before the fire officer approached to take them to one side. ‘Do you want me to speak to him?’ he asked Gully.

  ‘No, I’ll go, thank you. I can handle it.’

  It seemed like her automatic response was to reject anything that could be construed as a favour, no matter how minor. As she strode towards the fire crew assembled outside the shell of the house, any trepidation she was experiencing was well hidden. First impressions had shown she possessed resolve, and he guessed that she was determined not to make a second error too quickly.

  Goodhew climbed into the car along with Kimberly, sitting at the other end of the rear seat.

  ‘Have they found something?’ Her voice contained a heavy burr of emotion, but the delivery was unflinching.

  ‘PC Gully’s just gone to find out.’

  ‘I see. This’ll be it, then.’

  It was as if she spoke more to herself than to him, but he queried her in any case. ‘It?’